Street Scene 2007 Lineup Prediction: No rap
UPDATE: OFFICIAL LINEUP ANNOUNCED HERE.
So we know now that Snoop Dogg’s on-stage spliffing at last year’s Street Scene has caused the festival’s new host city—the up-market bourgeois belt of Del Mar—to make some “new rules” about the event. Namely “no drugs, no obscene visual displays, no guns, etc.”
So why was this asininely obvious bit of information 
considered “news” (reported this week in the U-T)? My guess is that it’s shrewd PR placement—even though the “rules warning” was put forth by the fairgrounds CEO Tim Fennell, I’ll bet Live Nation wanted this made public ahead of time so that when they announce the lineup, people won’t be surprised to see very little or no rap on the bill. (Hip-hop, it’s funkier pacifist cousin, will still get some stage time).
Think about it—which genre of music most openly discusses drugs and/or violence? If I was ranking, it would have to be 1) rap (lots of violence, some drugs), 2) electronica (lots of drugs, some violence) and 3) jam bands (lots of weed, very little violence).
Also, San Diego has a long history of violence at rap shows (stabbing at a Nelly concert, a shooting after the Snoop Dogg show, a large gang brawl at a 4th & B rap show last year). Of course, this is partially due to the predominantly caucasian media’s overeagerness to paint rap as bad for the environment. But, let’s be honest here—it mostly has to do with the street-tough image of rap artists themselves (see photo of 50 with glock, above).
Couple that image with the fact that very few San Diego County neighborhoods are as pale as Del Mar (94.14% Caucasian, 0.25% African-American, according to Wiki), and we’ve got the potential for some back-room whispers about “Y’know the sort of crowd these events attract.”
So I wouldn’t expect Snoop Dogg or 50 Cent to headline Day 1 or 2. The “news” pretty much takes out Clipse. If there is any hip-hop on the bill, it’ll most likely be the cleaner-living sort. And possibly with a lighter genetic tan. Say, three bad brothers we know so well?
Just a theory. May not play out that way. But that “news” makes me think we’ll see an unprecedented “whitening” of the event this year.
Nice reporting, Troy. I prefer the “funkier pacifist cousin” more anyway, but it is mos def very disturbing to think how these decisions are made, especially when it comes to blanket judgements based on fear and race.
Although, it doesn’t always take that much to get these coastal community panties all in a bunch. The very white (but very rebellious) Hank Williams III almost single-handedly brought a permanent end to the Fiesta Del Sol last year, when he got on stage (with pot leaves all over his set design) and the first thing he said was: “Go to Hell, Solana Beach!” (The name of his album was, “Go to Hell”.) Well, the City Council was so offended and just never got over it. So, from now on, all proposed artists must be reviewed and approved, and — get this — they must sign a statement declaring their set will be “family friendly” and promise not to curse or promote violence.
Now, how ridiculous is that? Let’s hope Street Scene… er, I mean “Beach Scene” (as they should be calling it)… doesn’t get this paranoid.
Aw, they’re just trying to keep out the riff-raff.
I can’t tell you how much this tidbit disgusts me.
Hackles are up over here…
Lemme clarify the above comments:
I was being facetious and it does not translate.
I am wholly disgusted by this veiled effort to maintain the whitification of Del Mar. Bring on the rap. May I suggest the organizers book the honorable Dr. Cornel West?
Has anyone written anything, anywhere, ever that would persuade teh refined world that rap and/or hip-hop are genres worthy of lifting a hackle in the first place? White, black, in between, it doesn’t matter to me – there is absolutely no reason for a public performance in a mainstream venue to promote drug culture, tolerate the denegration of women and celebrate urban thuggery.
I don’t much care that the “music” to which those appelations are affixed sucks something awful – the message alone is enough to keep that shit out of Street Scene. It has nothing to do with race, y’all. It has to do with standards of decency.
Theo, you obviously have never listened to any “rap and/or hip-hop”. Sure there’s the misogynistic & thuggish side of “gangsta rap” (which I don’t hold much respect for), but there is a LOT of positive & socially consious hip-hop out there. A Lot. I would be very proud to have my future child listen to The Roots, De La Soul, Jurassic-5, K-OS … just to name few.
I think that artists are artists, and should be allowed to express themselves… uncensored. Adults are adults (at least it *used* to be 21+ only at Street Scene) and should be allowed to decide for themselves what art they would like to consume.
Also, as to the worthiness of hip-hop on our culture, there are a whole slew of university courses devoted to teaching the history & social relevance of hip-hop. So, there must be some value there, no?
Actually, if you’ve ever listened to a hip-hop CD in your life, you’d know that this particular genre of music is especially good at taking a snapshot of our culture and holding the mirror up for us to look at. When it’s done well, not only are mind-boggling beats & rhythm strung together in the most beautiful way, but the lyrical rhymes are modern poetry that mos def WILL be admired and studied for generations to come.
Tupac, for example, was able to document a whole side of oppressed American culture in his songs that might not have been represented otherwise. For that, and for the beauty of his poetry, I will forgive him the glorified and immature “Thug Life” image that took him to his grave.
Miles Davis was an absolute asshole and drug addict in real life, but I’m not throwing out my Kind of Blue or Bitches Brew.
And for the record, I have had some of the most positive, love-filled, culture-rich, intellectual, inclusive and inspiring experiences of my life at hip-hop shows. So it has every right to be “performed in a mainstream venue” as anything else.
Yes, there’s no denying the fact that the commercial side of the culture can get waaaaaaaay outta hand at times, but isn’t that true of ANY aspect in pop culture?
And as far as the drug references go, if you start going down THAT slippery slope, we might as well erase some of the best artists in history. (Can you imagine a world without Bob Marley or the Beatles? I sure don’t want to.)
And since when were you elected moral judge of decency standards for the “refined world”? How insulting.
Like all art, if there are ugly things you don’t want to look at, it’s a relfection of the ugly things in our culture that we don’t want to deal with. The artists are not the problem. If you are concerned with violence and drugs, why don’t you volunteer at an aftershool program and lend a POSITIVE influence to the youth of today. Believe me, censorship will not get us to where we want to be.
Next, time you want to go bashing something you know absolutely NO-thing about (and actually admit that you are completely closed off to learning of), why don’t you just go home and put on one of your Coldplay cd’s (or whatever incredibly safe & boring musak you listen to) instead and leave you limited judgements to yourself.
Ursula,
There are university courses devoted to teaching Jacques Derrida’s deconstruction, and that steaming pile of shit is utterly without merit.
You haven’t any idea of the range, variety or richness of my musical taste or interest and I’m amused at your speculation. I don’t listen to Coldplay. I do listen to arguments closely.
My comment was directed pointedly at an aspect of a subculture that is loathsome, monstrous and misogynistic; one that glorifies acquisitiveness, revels in filth and exemplifies amply the vacuity of virtue that defines too much of contemporary America. I stand by my assertions on that matter.
Yes, artists have a right to produce anything they want. So do non-artists like Snoop Dogg and Fiddy-what-the-fuck-ever. Yes, adults have a right to experience whatever they choose. But, and this is the point, venue operators have a right to hire what talent they wish. They also have a right not to hire thugs and they should have a right to do so without the worry that their choice will be perceived as racist.
Black performers have played the Fairgrounds innumerable times. They will again. As to Del Mar being 94% white, that makes it only 13% whiter than America in general (with Hispanics counted as whites).
Slightly fewer than one in six Americans are black. Notice I used the term black, not African American, because if we go back far enough we are all Africans. The contributions to our art and history from black Americans are so substantial, so plentiful and so interwoven into the fabric of our society that it disserves black people to identify racism where there is none. There is plenty of fighting left to do on the racial justice front. I will not waste my time fighting for the promotion of depravity even if the depraved performers in question are black. It has nothing to do with race.
And Ursula, as for what services I render in the furtherance of social justice and the building of a better world, those are my private matters and you, Ma’am, can kiss my dick.
In all due respect, you didn’t specify your contempt to be limited to the admittedly questionable talent to 50 & Snoop… until your response. YOU LUMPED IN THE ENTIRE GENRE!!! May I remind you:
“Has anyone written anything, anywhere, ever that would persuade teh refined world that rap and/or hip-hop are genres worthy of lifting a hackle in the first place?”
Listen, I am most certainly NOT defending thugs and mysogynists. No. But I AM pointing out that there is a very real distinction and it is not fair (and yes, could even be seen as racist) to make judgements on an entire musical genre (predominantly consisting of black artists) based on the lowest and most sensational few.
Of course the promoters have the right to decide what talent they book. Duh. I’m not sure what your point is.
I admit I am in a contrary mood today. And you’re right, I don’t know who the hell you are, and what you have in your ipod. But, your asinine comments (see quote above), indicated VERY limited knowledge on the genre itself, and therefore lead to the assumptions about your musical taste. I frankly don’t know how someone with such “range, variety or richness” in musical interest could fall into that trap.
I don’t make it a habit to attack or make assumptions about people, and if it came across as such, I do apologize. I don’t like to lower my arguments to that level, and I got lazy & frustrated at the end, but my main regret is that I think my digression gave you an out to not address the point of contention.
But, I stand by my assertions that you obviously don’t know enough about the genre to dismiss it as a whole… and for that, my friend, I feel sorry for you because you’re missin out on some fine head-noddin shit.
ps… your last line was quite a display of that “refined world” you speak of.
One has a right to do many things, including write what closing line one wants.
Tell you what, Ursula, since I obviously stand little chance of persuading you that I have any expertise in the field of musicology, or the arts in general, for that matter, and since consequently I couldn’t possibly persuade you to come around to my position that while there are no doubt individual artists and groups of artists working in the greater rap/hip-hop arena whose work rises to the standard of art, on the whole, as genres go, that one sucks horribly, instead I’ll put the rhetorical shoe on the other foot. I defy you to produce one well-argued case from the entire corpus of contemporary philosophy of art that maintains, in legitimate academic terms, that rap/hip-hop are examples of high art. Find me an article, anywhere, that will withstand rigorous academic analysis. I dare you.
Guess you couldn’t find anything. Well done, Ursula.
I think the major problem is that Street Scene, in the last few years at least, has dismally failed to do what Coachella (first festival that comes to my mind) has done so well with it’s hip-hop/rap artists:
Promote. The. Intelligent. Ones.
Atmosphere
Common
Digable Planets
Lady Sovereign
Lyrics Born
MURS
Aesop Rock
Talib Kweli
Kanye West
Blackstar
MF Doom
Dizzee Rascal
Are just some of the Rap/Hip Hop artists who’ve appeared there the past few years (and yes, there are some pretty bad ones listed, but I’ll let you decide what from what), and it’s not like these artists are festival exclusive… Street Scene CAN pull them, especially with Live Nation’s backing.
However, does this mean we will see a Hip-Hop headliner at the festival? No. I actually would have pegged Akon to show up at the festival… But with his last streak of stupid incidents, I doubt he’ll even be considered by the festival planners…
I think that, if anything… if ANY true rap artist/group could headline Street Scene… It’d be Public Enemy, but even that’s a serious stretch… (Busta Rhymes wouldn’t be completely out of the question either)
I will be happy if they pull out some old school rap artists like Rakim (releasing a new album in July) or A Tribe Called Quest (currently in the studio recording a new album) or hell, the Roots…
And there are some decent young rap artists like Brother Ali who I wouldn’t mind, either…
I will admit, I won’t be sad to see a repeat Sean Paul performance or even the possibility of Paul Wall go out the window… And, for that, I thank the wrinkly-assed white people of Del Mar.
theo, i had to go home, and didn’t see your response till now. i never claimed that this genre was ‘high art’, but i did claim it had enough value to not be entirely discounted.
i don’t need you to prove anything to me. you already have. if you have any expertise in ‘musicology or the arts in general’, then i find it highly unlikely you would make such blanketing claims. i don’t know any musicologists that would be so exclusive.
and for the record, i don’t make it a habit to discount things i don’t know about, and i can find something good in almost every genre of music…. except, maybe i don’t know anything about this thing they call ‘krunk’, so i would hold off condemning it until i had the opportunity do listen to it, and have something to base my opinions.
i have not have time to take you up on your challenge, and i do not have time now, but i might in the near future. we’ll see.
until then, i feel i have said my peice. and i most certainly don’t need to waste any time in an attempt to pursuade some so-called art & music expert to open their mind.
btw, close-minded art & music expert? seems like an oxymoron to me. maybe just moron. i could be wrong.
How open is a mind that has an opinion about anything? You seem, Ursula, to be just as closed to the possibility that I am right as I am to the possibility that you are. We’re both close-minded and one of us is wrong. I’m betting it’s you.
Yeah, THAT made a lot of sense, buddy.
Listen man, I have nothing against you. I just think you’re the one missing out by spouting off on something of which you *still* don’t seem to know the first thing about. For decades, I have listened to extensive hip-hop, been to countless shows, I have intimately experienced both the good and the bad that this genre has to offer, and therefore have something concrete to base my opinion.
You can have your opinon, but I’m sorry, it’s just that. Your opinion. And it seems to be pulled from thin air. You don’t have an argument that holds any water at all. I have tried to outline specific reasons to support *my* opinion, which you so convienently ignore.
So how could I be “closed” to you being right when you haven’t provided anything to back your claims? You don’t even make sense. And, again, it seems oxymoronic for you to suggest for me to be open to your closed-off view.
And you know why you can’t back your off-handed claim, because it is impossible. You cannot just throw out an entire genre of music like that. I have been open from the beginning — from my very first post — to the fact that there is some serious crap in the rap/hip-hop genre, so I don’t get what you’re saying. But I, as well as others on this post, have also listed many artists that directly rebuke your ignorant premise.
Yeah, I see your view, and it does’t make sense. It’s like trying to argue with a Republican. Round and round in fallicious circles.
Why can’t you just say, ‘I don’t like Rap/Hip-Hop’? I can’t (and I most certainly don’t want to) MAKE you like something. That’s just ridiuclous. But, why instead do you make stupid blanketing statements that disintegrate any legitimacy to your so-called argument?
Oh well. I’m bored with you and your school yard tactics (Tag! You’re it! bullshit). Seriously, are you comedy right now! But you know what, I don’t care. Do whatever you like. Go ahead, like I said before, you are the one missing out.
Ursula – I asked in my first post whether anyone had seriously questioned whether there was anything about the co-genre of rap and hip-hop that was worth raising a hackle. I went on from there to my thesis statement, one with which you almost agreed. There are thuggery, misogyny, propagation of violence and celebration of drugs in both subdisciplines and it is specifically those aspects that are being left off the ticket in Del Mar, per Troy’s post.
You responded to me, however, by telling me I knew nothing of music and that I listen to Coldplay. Those two allegations were, respectively, non-responsive and ad hominem. THOSE, Ursula, are fallacies.
I then challenged you to produce any credible opinion from a serious art critic or philosopher of art to dispute my opinion on the matter of the general caliber of either “art” form (an opinion implied, but not expressed by me until you touched on it), and you’ve not yet done so.
You DID tell me I was closed-minded. You are as well, Ursula. I know very well of which I speak. I am extremely familiar with both forms of music as I am with music in general, notwithstanding your unfounded inference to the contrary.
I do many things. I do not make “stupid blanketing statements.” Neither do I argue poorly in print. I’m actually trying to be somewhat gentle with you, Ursula. If you’d prefer, I can start busting you up over the topic of your choice. Name one. You don’t want to argue with me – I’m telling you.
Ursula, I will put this to you as best I can. Had you argued with me that the rap/hip-hop genre, without consideration of its merit as art, nevertheless appeals to a broad cross-section of San Diegans, and had you maintained that therefore one would hope the organizers of our region’s biggest annual music event would reflect those San Diegans’ taste in their choice of performers while still leaving off the program the filth peddlers, some mentioned by name in the foregoing, whose acts have spawned violent clashes and whose messages are strewn with rampant rapacity and depravity, I would have had to agree.
I think rap/hip-hop are no less worthy than most popular music from the standpoint of artistic analysis. I do not personally like them – they are not euphonic and I prize euphony in music as I do in the spoken and written word.
But you did not argue that point. You argued that my saying an event organizer has every right in the world to keep degenerate acts off his or her stage amounted to me being possibly racist, closed-minded and devoid of musical taste. You went further and accused me of arguing from ignorance.
What you did, Ursula, was bicker without unraveling interwoven points. In so doing, you made yourself a carping, argumentative harpie.
Ursula, keep on keepin’ it real, sister. You’re right. Theo is… misguided. I think it’s because he prefers to listen to his old Kenny G albums and Michael Bolton cds.
I ordinarily listen to Bob Wills and Burl Ives, actually. Seriously, ladies and talented actors with silly names, I’m not trying to slight individuals whose work does not appeal to me as a matter of taste, I started and will end with the assertion that organizers of a quasi-public event have every right and reason in the world to keep the P-Diddies, Half-Dollars, Two-Pack-o’-Newports and Icepicks of the world out of their venues.
Theo has been stalking me for years. I finally had to get a restraining order.
Had you never given it up to me that first time, Burly-poo, I could let go. As it is, once you’ve gone all grey and grizzled, you can’t go back and dat’s da shizzle!
By the way, I was reflecting upon both the popularity of the genre in question and Ursula’s passion inflamed by my position thereabout and so I listened to a recently extremely popular single last night that includes the lyrics, “’til the sweat drips down my balls,” and “aw – skeet, skeet motherfucker.” You’re right. I’m missing something.
ridiculous.
What’s ridiculous, Ursula, is that I made two separate propositions and you’ve not really addressed either of them. One knows when propositions are separate because they’re separated by terminal puctuation. The first was interrogatory:
1) has anyone written anything compeeling to argue the merits of rap/hip-hop from an artistic standpoint.
The second was declarative:
2) There are legitimate, non-race-based reasons for Street Scene to bar drugs, onscene visual displays and guns.
Now, Ursula, would you like to argue the latter or answer the former of those propositions? By the way, this very rag has covered this topic before.
http://www.sdcitybeat.com/article.php?id=4687
In fact, it has run a response from a black reader as well (see the September 20, 2006 letters to the editor).
OK, Theo. I think some of what you’ve said is good, but to write rap and hip-hop off as an entire genre is throwing a rather huge, talented baby out with the bath water. I would argue without waver that rap and hip-hop is definitely an art.
Does the genre have more misogynistic lyrics than all other genres? Yes.
Does it have more violence than any other genre? Yes.
Does it talk about drugs more than any genre? Arguably.
But, as has been said billions of times because it’s true: did any other artistic movement so accurately capture the real, shit-house lives of blacks in the inner American cities who grew up in a country that treated them like second-class citizens on a good day and like murderous purse-snatchers on a bad day?
Now, of course, the genre has moved on from the black experience to include whites, Asians, etc. who are masterful poets and word-players and scratchers and mixmasters–who I also argue are “artists” and “worthy.” But it’s especially repugnant and a rather misguided feat of ad-hoc revisionism to write off rap’s initial explosion as invalid art. It was the creative tributary that resulted from the trenches of America’s greatest social war.
Public Enemy’s “911 Is A Joke” does not glamorize violence or misogyny. It merely says that “where I grew up, 911 didn’t make house calls. If they did, they came with guns drawn.” To watch Mixmaster Mike manipulate the turntables and not call that “worthy art” is to turn a blind eye and ear.
Where rap went wrong is that johnny-come-latelies took that element of guns-drugs-violence-sex and started playing it up to cartoonish levels just to sell albums.
But to write off the entire genre because of fools like that is to write off jazz simply because Kenny G turned it into instrumental pop music for Prozac’d-out suburban housewives.
Now THAT is a compelling case. Well put, Troy.
I would argue that other genres have in fact put the black experience into just as harsh a light and every bit as artistically – the blues comes to mind, and of course, the 70′s rage work of Gil Scott Heron and others.
I concede there is talent in “911 Is a Joke.” I concede that. of course there is virtuosity in Mixmaster Mike’s alliterative manipulation of a murntable. I don’t know that I would call it the “greatest” tributary that resulted from America’s social war over race.
I will say this: the point about not having to capitulate to the forces of faux inclusivity by accepting public indecncy got hand-waved and dismissed. I wish that anyone wanted to engage in serious discussion about where the race matter needs to go next in America and I had hoped that someone might join me in letting Ursula know that she is way off the mark, missing the point and perpetuating a postmodern, not-really-progressive sterotyping of racial “tolerance” that appeals to standardlessness.
That discussion matters, Troy, because if one wants to speculate about racial underpinnings and subliminal motivations, one is on treacherous ground. if one finds racism where it is not, one risks crying wolf and being unheard when one finds the real, insidious, divisive racism that feeds the monster of the system.
Capitalism is color blind. Participants in a capitalist system are not, including the black participants like Tupac who squandered his gift and who generations of black performers from Paul Robeson to Sydney Poitier to Bill Cosby to Lenny Kravitz would deride as a loss to an urban value system that degrades art as much as it does human life.
As to my first question, until now, nobody answered it. You did and quite well, pacing the degradation of an emergent, unspoiled, spontaneous means of expression within the context of a short but momentous history.
As to the matter in Del Mar, the Fairgrounds also, I presume, will not invite Eminem to perform. They shouldn’t. I’m down with DelaSoul if they get booked.
Every time I write about blackness I get overwhelming kudos from black readers and the derision of white progressives who are, in their way, as repressive an obstacle to true black progress as any arrayed against blacks from any corner. I am the product of inter-racial rearing myself. I spent my young childhood with a second mother, a black one. I grew up immersed in blackness as a white child in my father’s world as much as in my mother(s)’. As an academic, the philosophy of politics, law and society were my graduate specialization with a special focus on diversity. In my first career I was a buyer of African-American books for the specialty market (I prefer black lit, but Af/Am is the conventional term).
I am telling you that there is something very important to this debate and I regret that the preceding argument missed the point precisely because it found racism where it is not. Racism is many places in the real experience of blacks in this country, some moreso than others. Racism is an insidious, malevolent, cancerous truth about a society only six generations removed from owning human beings as farm animals. Racism is, second only to classism, the most important thing that still confronts us as a people. Not inviting despicable concrete monsters like Fiddy-Cent to the Fairgrounds is good for black Americans. Period.
Conflating race with a popular movement that encourages rebellious, middle-calss youth to adopt and perpetuate racial stereotypes is potentially quite bad.
Fuck, I’ve followed your little pissing contest for the last 5 minutes and its digressed more and more into a defense of yourselves, not the actual topic.
All genres have valid artists, and all genres have shit. Be it Country to Rap to String Quartet to whatever the fuck you have on your i-pod that makes you feel better about yourself. No genre can be discounted in a blanket statement. But that being said, disagreeing with the cultural message sent by the majority of modern mainstream (and even underground) RAP artists today is in no way racist.
To draw that conclusion would be the equivalent of saying the promoters hate Mexicans for not featuring any Mariachi music.
But back to Rap
It is overwhemlingly mysoginistic, violent and crass. And as a musician who has studied every possible style of music I’ve been able to get my hands on, I find it downright lazy. I too would be delighted to see Street Scene take a step away from Rap, and I don’t fault the promoters for wishing to keep the more questionable “artists” from performing.
This doesn’t mean that there will suddenly be no black people. There are many talented African Americans right next door in the land of Hip Hop, and *ghasp* other genres as well. How about we get TV on the Radio, or Bloc party, or bring back the Toots and the Maytals?
I’ve already gone on way longer than I intended, so I’ll just sum it up with this:
I knew an overweight lesbian mexican girl in college who was convinced that everyone who disagreed with her was racist and sexist. She carried that chip on her shoulder wherever she went. Needless to say she didn’t have much fun in life.
Lifes too short to worry about the perception of others.
Thank you.
Oh and P.S. as I said, there are good acts in every genre, Rap included, such as Wu Tang and Tupac. And while I personally like them, their messages can still be very violent and crude, and I would not fault the promoters for wishing to keep artists in the same vein from performing. Remember, in the end, this is a business. These promoters want to make money. I wouldn’t consider performers advocating gang violence to be the best investment.
Paul wins.
I think I once slept with an overweight lesbian Mexican girl in college. She wasn’t a lesbian at the time, but she darn sure was after she had to deal with me for 48 seconds with my socks still on.
So 48 seconds and socks eh? You lady killer you. Did you get her all sauced up on boxed white zin beforehand?
Nope – she rolled for some Nilla wafers and two hits of nitrous.
Gotta love them classy broads. I hope she didn’t give you oral herpes when sharing the baloon.
although you could always think of it as a parting gift.
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all of u fuckin rap haters out there shut the fuck up cause 50 is tha best