Morrissey talks about race again. No, it's not what you think.

Without even going near the High Court endorsed viewpoint that Morrissey Is Not A Racist Nor Ever Shall Be Called Such, it's clear Mozzer has a complicated worldview that probably can't be summed up comfortably in one word.

He's just called out Obama for acting like black lives don't matter:

Obama has mystified me because he doesn’t appear to support black people when they need it most… Ferguson being an obvious example. If Michael Brown had instead been one of Obama’s daughters, I don’t think Obama would be insisting that the nation support the so-called security forces! How can they be called security forces if they make the people feel insecure? Obama seems to be white inside. There is an obvious racial division in America and it’s exploding and Obama doesn’t ever support the innocent black people who are murdered by white police officers who are never held accountable. You would expect him to be more understanding of what it means to be black. But so far, he hasn’t been.​ There’s no point in continually saying that we must support the police when it is obvious to the entire world that the police in America are out of control.

How can this Morrissey then go to London and mutter about not hearing English accents in Knightsbridge and the gates to England "being flooded". It's almost as if (pop psychology alert) that having spent so much time in America, Morrissey finds it impossible to talk about Britain except through a character - part cartoon, part one-of-the-sleeves-of-a-Smiths-record - in the same way that, say, Lousie Mensch's attempts at providing commentary on American politics is powered by a belief that she should know about this sort of thing, but without enough context to clarify into something that isn't a bit embarrassing.

And in case you're thinking "well, this is Morrissey just saying something liberal to try and offset the view in some people's minds", that doesn't seem to be the case either; it feels thought-through. Compare this with what he has to say about racism in the music industry (American music industry, of course) where he's a bit sketchier:

I think rap has scared the American white establishment to death, mainly because it’s true. James Brown once sang “Say It Loud, I’m Black And I’m Proud”. No pop artist would ever be allowed to say that today … they’d be instantly dropped from the label. If Billie Holiday approached Capitol Records in 2015 they wouldn’t entertain her for a second. Also, yes, I feel that I bring my spirit to America, and I feel very much a part of it and I’ve played in most cities big or small. America has been so important to my musical life, and the audiences have always been incredible. I’ve always felt privileged even though I know I’ve been locked out of mainstream considerations. That’s life! Me and Billie Holiday, good company, at least.

It's a pity they didn't ask him to expand a bit on what he meant by "rap" - the quote here could have come from thirty years ago; does mainstream rap really still worry the establishment in the same way? It's hard to believe that tracks like Trap Queen are going to cause too many Bank of America execs to nervously run a finger round their collar. There's a sense of the "I'd imagine" about this part of the interview; like his descriptions of Britain and immigration in the fateful NME interview, it's as if he's generating a viewpoint based on half-impressions and fractured memories.

I think we're nowhere different from where we started - Morrissey has a complex intersection with questions of race and identity in the modern world.

And while you don't need Morrissey to point out that a lot of white American cops have a problem with a lot of Americans who aren't white, the fact that he is may say something about just how bad that situation has become.

Rapobit: Pumpkinhead

Alan Diaz, the rapper Pumpkinhead, has died, according to reports from AllHipHop.

A member of both Brooklyn AC and The Plague, and (like most of his generation) a serial collaborator, Pumpkinhead explained to Latin Rapper in 2004 that if he wasn't a massive breakout name, that was fine for him:

Before Jadakiss came out with that "The Champ Is Here" sh*t, I was the peoples champion, aiight. I was the peoples champion of underground Hip Hop and that's my title.

I'm the peoples champion of underground Hip Hop. I don't try to retain the title thought, I mean, I just do what I know best. You know what I mean? My music allows me to get that respect and that acclaim from the people that like real Hip Hop. So, I don't try they just give me the title, they allow me to keep my title, basically.

Pumpkinhead was 39; the cause of his death is unclear.

Bookmarks: Rap

Excellent work by Businessweek, which has produced a graph comapring rap star's claims about their wealth with how much they actually have:

Nicki Minaj
"I'm in Saint Tropez on a big boat, go my way to make a billi like a big goat"
Song: Up In Flames, 2013
2012 earnings: $15.5 million

Bookmarks: Rap and hip hop

Lisa Wade over at Sociological Images reports on work by Kevin Steinmetz and Howard Henderson. They've tabulated hip-hop lyrics to explore the claims that rap is violently anti-cop. The results? Not so much:

Steinmetz and Henderson conclude:

We actually found that the overwhelming message in hip-hop wasn’t that the rappers disliked the idea of justice, but they disliked the way it was being implemented.

These communities, then, have a strong sense of justice… rooted in the sense that they’re not getting any.

Chuck D wants you to work harder

Chuck D thinks the current crop of rappers are falling somewhat short:

"I'm a servant. I'm just here to serve the people," Chuck D told Spinner after the show. "Hip-hop is like my military."

The man who famously called rap music "the black CNN" says that artists are obliged to say something meaningful in their lyrics, and that too many MCs fall short of that mark.

"You have to say something in your lyrics," he says. "Sure, you can make it entertaining, and it should be entertaining. But you have to be saying something."

It gets worse for American rappers, as he reckons they're not just falling short of their forebears, but they're also being shown up by their neighbours:

"There are a lot of Canadian artists," he says. "K-os, K'naan, those are guys who put a lot of thought into representing their cultures and where they're from. In the United States, we have artists like Brother Ali and Saigon, so there are some."

But mostly, Canadian (or Somali-Canadian, in the case of K'naan) are showing up Americans.

Asked for a comment, American rap was too busy designing perfume bottles to come to the door, but American rap's mother said she expects American rap would accuse Mr D of being an "h-eight-ar", and would offer Mr D the chance to suck his penis. As she closed the door, she sighed and muttered "he was such a lovely child, too."

Schooly D pulled in to Norwegian slaughter

What's the difference between Schooly D and Melanie Phillips?

Where Mel was approvingly included in Anders Breivik's moronfesto, Schooly D's lyrics turn up as an example of what is bad about hip-hop. Phawker explains:

Breivik includes a slightly bastardized version of John P McWhorter’s 2003 anti-rap diatribe How Hip-Hop Holds Blacks Back, which singles out a few of the most sensational lines from Schooly D’s proto-gangsta rap classic “PSK What Does It Mean?” to illustrate the toxicity of hip-hop.

Breivik, naturally, is bending his evidence to fit his worldview, and doesn't include the lines where D realises guns are bad, and turns to rapping instead.

Schooly D is going to make an official statement next week, but Phawker sums it all up rather nicely:

If we were in his shoes we would say this: I am not interested in lectures about the negative effect of rap lyrics on society from mass murderers. Period. End of story.

Rapobit: Nate Dogg

Nate Dogg, former Death Row artist, has died.

Dogg has been plagued by ill-health for much of his life; he had massive strokes in 2007 and 2008.

Born Nathaniel D. Hale in Long Beach, Dogg was introduced to performing by his pastor father, singing regularly in church. After a spell in the marines, Dogg formed 213 with Warren G and Snoop Dogg. Dr Dre heard the group's demo, leading to a 1993 deal with Death Row. Although working in his own right, much of his greatest success came when he was riding shotgun with Tupac and Warren G - in all, he would chart in the US 40 times in various partnerships. He should have thought about adopting Featuring as his first name.

Nate had legal run-ins - guns and drugs and community service - but had been returning to the church; towards the end of the last decade he formed a gospel choir, Innate Praise.

Nate Dogg was 41; he died on Tuesday 15th March.

Rapobit: Derek B

Derek B, who has died from a heart attack, was a successful British rapper when it was quite a challenge.

The B was short for Boland; he dropped the 'Oland when starting his career at just 15 with Good Groove and Bad Young Brother. Although both tracks made it to the top 20 - taking him onto Top Of The Pops - he never managed to sustain success as a performer and switched instead to A&R and production.



A slightly more shameful contribution to popular culture came with his co-authoring of The Anfield Rap, Liverpool's 1988 FA Cup single:

He gives us stick about the north/south divide
'cause they got the jobs
Yeah, but we got the side

Perhaps that wasn't one of Derek's lines.

Derek B was 44; he is survived by his mother, Jenny.

Rap: It's from Scotland

No, actually it isn't, but Professor Ferenc Szasz suggests that old Caledonian Flyting battles are a little bit like rap battles.

Szasz suggests there is "a clear link" between the two:

According to the theory, Scottish slave owners took the tradition with them to the United States, where it was adopted and developed by slaves, emerging many years later as rap.

He has uncovered a previously overlooked version of Tupac, Where's Your Troosers by Puff Daddy which he insists proves his point.

I was going to finish this by suggesting that it's only at Christmas that the Sunday Telegraph would stoop to publishing this sort of made-up guff, but I'm not confident that's the case any more.

Confessions to a beat

Rapper Rico Todriquez Wright is settling into prison right now for shooting Chad Blue. Wright didn't exactly help himself evade justice when he recorded a song about shooting Chad Blue, including the line:

"Chad Blue knows how I shoot"

Eric Clapton is now worried about police reopening thirty year-old investigations into the murders of serving police officers.

James P - to whom, thanks for the story - adds this:

The surviving members of Thin Lizzy are currently preparing an urgent statement reiterating that 'Whiskey in the Jar' was a cover of a folk song. (Although that won't stop the Daily Mail checking Amazon.co.uk to see if a Thin Lizzy Peel Sessions CD is available, then phoning Captain Farrell's descendents to see if they're outraged that the BBC is profitting from their bereavement...)

Wright is now going to serve twenty years, each day cursing that he hadn't been able to think of another rhyme for "ladies know I'm hot in my suit".

... whereas who can't do a spot of rapping?

Fabolous might want to think a little harder before discussing his career path:

"I thought I was going to be an artist. I went to art and design high school. I drew cartoon characters. Then I realised I wasn't very good, so I turned to music."

Given that drawing cartoons doesn't always call for the highest level of artistic skill, this doesn't really suggest Fabolous viewed rap as a difficult option.

Rap songs: It's all about the drugs

The Mail is excited this morning to discover the Denise Herd's study from Addiction Research & Theory that suggests that the number of references to drugs has increased:

Dr Herd, reporting in the journal Addiction Research & Theory, found that, of the 38 most popular songs between 1979 and 1984, only four - or 11 per cent - contained drug references.

By the late 1980s, that number had increased to 19 per cent.

After 1993, 69 per cent of rap songs mentioned drug use. Mentions of cannabis and "blunts" - marijuana-stuffed cigars - doubled between 1979 and 1997.

Yes, the study only runs up until 1997, so effectively the Mail is running a story about how bad rap was eleven years ago.

Not that that stops the Mail from illustrating "bad" drugs raps with a chunk of lyrics from an Eminem track from 1999. Mind you, they also illustrate "good" (i.e. anti-) drug songs with a chunk of White Lines (Don't Do It), whose credentials as a crusading track are somewhat undermined by it having been written as a love song to coke with the meaning flipped to ensure radio play.

The use of "percentage of rap songs mentioning drugs" is also a bit of a weak measure - couldn't the story here be less about how now more songs talk about drugs, and more about a general shift of rap from being a form of political and social commentary to being a hymnal for the joys of capitalist consumption?

The report itself seems to suggest so:

Recent songs with drug references were three times more likely to have themes related to glamour and wealth than earlier titles, and seven times more likely to emphasise drug use as recreation or as an accompaniment to sex.

Is the increasing linking of drugs and money a sign of a more drug-positive culture in rap - or merely that, by the mid-90s, rappers had moved from the underclass to Business Class?

Remy Ma abandons SUV, disappears after shooting

Remy Ma's SUV has been found, crashed and abandoned, by police investigating a shooting incident in New York. The suspect in the shooting has been described as "a woman in her 20s"; the 26 year-old Ma scampered away from her car a block away, and is being sought for questioning.

Rap it up for the common good/ let us enlist some of Hollywood

Imagine fusing, in some sort of ill-considered crucible, MTV's best-forgotten search for a white rapper with, ooh, say, Celebrity Fame Academy. You'd probably end up with a format where celebrities were formed into teams to rap-off at each other.

MTV, the suckers, would bite your hand off.

"and there's no way I'm doing a cover of 'Venus... she's got it', either

Serena Williams has apparently been playing about recording rap music, but reckons she's too shy to pursue a music career alongside her main job playing pat-a-ball. Doubtless any moment now she'll be taking calls from executives keen to discover if a cheque large enough will help her over her embarrassment.

Cops war on rap: Derby venue closed

Curious goings-on in Derby, where last night cops enforced a 24 hour closure on the T5 Club to prevent a Lloyd Banks gig.

The police complain they weren't given a chance to do "a risk assessment" and hadn't had enough "notice" of the gig - although this is a gig, with promotion and everything, so you'd have thought with the police being in the detection business they might have noticed for themselves.

Curiously, when the police started to kick up a fuss, the promoters offered to cancel the event, but this didn't seem to be good enough for the Derbyshire Police. We're not sure if they were attempting to throw their weight around, send out a message, or just show off their powers, but they insisted on having the venue closed outright:

Chief Inspector Gary Parkin said: "Unfortunately there have been a number of firearms-related incidents at similar events connected with this music genre in the East and West Midlands, London and Manchester.

"We accept the majority of people who attend are just there to enjoy themselves and sadly it is a small minority who cause significant problems.

"We have to balance this up against the security of all people visiting Derby's pubs and clubs and we have a duty to ensure they feel safe."

So, they don't seem to have problems with Lloyd Banks specifically, it's more rap in general - which seems rather a wide net to be casting out. And, since the news of the cancellation came through on Saturday lunchtime, what risk assessment was carried out on the effect of these phantom gunmen turning up and being pissed off the gig they'd bought tickets for had been axed with very short notice?

Yes, something must be done about violence at gigs - but to cancel a gig in short measure because of the genre of music looks a little dodgy; especially when the audience for the music in question contains a lot of young, black men. We seem to remember the police in the 1970s stopping young, black men going about their legal business with very little (often no) justification at all. Let's hope Derbyshire Police aren't just doing this on an industrial scale.

Radio station bans hate-rap

It might not be quite the headline victory Al Sharpton is hoping for, with his march against nasty rap lyrics, but Sunny Radio Govan has announced it won't be playing Here You, the NEDS Kru track:

Glasgow's Sunny Govan Radio, [..] deemed it "derogatory to their listeners".

Banning the tune, the community radio station said: "It would be seen as though someone from the West End Karen Dunbar mob were taking the piss out of people from schemes."

It would be seen that was as, erm, that's what it is.

Shut up, says Sharpton

We're minded to think of the flavour of the month club as we watch the current war on rap profanity. Al Sharpton and the National Action Network is now onboard, planning a march this Thursday on the HQs of three major labels in New York:

"We aren't marching against artists -- we are marching against record companies to ban these words completely," says Tamika Mallory, who is leading the NAN's decency initiative. "It's nice that Russell Simmons asked for these words to be bleeped out, but if we start from the top and ban them, then we won't have to answer questions at the bottom."

It's an interesting and depressing view of the music industry and creativity that the NAN believe that commercial organisations ought to be the conscience and arbiter of art, and that individual artists aren't considered worth appealing to, or capable of exercising their own judgement. Wouldn't it be better if people didn't make records which called women whores because they didn't think of women that way, rather than because Sony-BMG have instructed them not to? Shouldn't rappers (and rockers) be asked to exercise a little personal thought?

Russell Simmons calls for something other than censorship

Nobody would argue there aren't times when hip-hop and R&B (along with every other genre of music) embarrasses itself with some of its lyrics. Russell Simmons has decided enough is enough - but he isn't suggesting censorship as such:

Recommendation to the Recording and Broadcast Industries:
A Statement by Russell Simmons and Dr. Benjamin Chavis on behalf of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network

April 23, 2007

The theme of the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network (HSAN) is "Taking Back Responsibility." We are consistent in our strong affirmation, defense, and protection of the First Amendment right of free speech and artistic expression. We have recently been involved in a process of dialogue with recording and broadcast industry executives about issues concerning corporate social responsibility.

It is important to re-emphasize that our internal discussions with industry leaders are not about censorship. Our discussions are about the corporate social responsibility of the industry to voluntarily show respect to African Americans and other people of color, African American women and to all women in lyrics and images.

HSAN reaffirms, therefore, that there should not be any government regulation or public policy that should ever violate the First Amendment. With freedom of expression, however, comes responsibility. With that said, HSAN is concerned about the growing public outrage concerning the use of the words "bitch," "ho," and "nigger." We recommend that the recording and broadcast industries voluntarily remove/bleep/delete the misogynistic words "bitch" and "ho" and the racially offensive word "nigger."

Going forward, these three words should be considered with the same objections to obscenity as "extreme curse words." The words "bitch" and "ho" are utterly derogatory and disrespectful of the painful, hurtful, misogyny that, in particular, African American women have experienced in the United States as part of the history of oppression, inequality, and suffering of women. The word "nigger" is a racially derogatory term that disrespects the pain, suffering, history of racial oppression, and multiple forms of racism against African Americans and other people of color.

In addition, we recommend the formation of a music industry Coalition on Broadcast Standards, consisting of leading executives from music, radio and television industries. The Coalition would recommend guidelines for lyrical and visual standards within the industries.

We also recommend that the recording industry establish artist mentoring programs and forums to stimulate effective dialogue between artists, hip-hop fans, industry leaders and others to promote better understanding and positive change. HSAN will help to coordinate these forums.

These issues are complex, but require creative voluntary actions exemplifying good corporate social responsibility.

We'd have thought that if we learned anything at the hands of Tipper Gore, it's that quasi-voluntary codes of conduct, and standards and bleeping doesn't make things better - after all, has a Parental Advisory rating ever made any band think twice about its content?

The way to stop musicians recording songs which treat women like shit and play games with racist epithets isn't to have some sort of pools panel of sobriety rating songs on how they fit a pre-determined grid of what's acceptable; it's more about changing the atmosphere so that acts wouldn't want to release a song which talks about women as "whores" in the first place. Rather than issuing long, rambling calls for something to be done, figures like Simmons should use their influence to suggest that it might be a good idea for rap videos to contain fewer women in their knickers, for example. You need to challenge the mindset that makes the records, not merely put your hands over your ears when they get to the bits you find uncomfortable.

Robbie Williams is not a bad rapper

Robbie Williams has admitted he's a rubbish rapper. Not, though, that his attempts at rapping were poor - as it seems, erm, that wasn't rapping. He's like cough Mike Skinner:

"Well this is the thing. I absolutely, positively know that I'm not a rapper.

"I'm not. I'd love to be, but I'm me, I come from Take That! I believe everyone is saying 'Robbie can't rap.' Yeah, I can't, but I'm not rapping.

"For me, it's about having more bars in a song and therefore more words, more pictures painted. Mike Skinner's not a rapper."

So, if we've got this straight, Williams can't be accused of being a pisspoor rapper because he's not trying to rap, he's just being a pisspoor embarrassment at something else entirely.

Mike Skinner might not be a rapper, Robbie, but he's good at what he does.