This song is basically Lupe Fiasco telling the world about his fantasy where racism has never existed. He starts the song by inventing a history in which Black people were never exploited, or forced to be slaves. Instead the U.S. was a society built upon equality: "Constitution written by the W.E.B. Dubois/ Were no reconstructions, Civil War got avoided /Little black Sambo grows up to be a lawyer" ( all lyrics taken from : http://www.killerhiphop.com/lupe-fiasco-all-black-everything-lyrics/#ixzz1Eue3MjGS) W.E.B. Dubois of course is one the most famous sociologists. Debois was a Black man living in the USA at a time when racism was standard practice.Slavery had been abolished almost 100 years before Debois wrote "The Souls of Black Folks," but practises like segregation were still legal. Debois thought the solutions to a more equitable relationship between Blacks and Whites could be attained through better education and a more responsible and representative government.
Lupe Fiasco muses about an America where "keeping it real is not an understood concept" because no one has been so oppressed that they have to remember what it was like to bee so poor. In his fantasy there are no Bloods or Crips because there was no animosity between the groups and "Matter of fact no hood to attack in." Lupe is directly pointing slavery and the systemic poverty as the causes of gangs and gang wars.
This song could be seen as a call to action, rather than just an observation of society. Lupe raps:
" Uh, and I know it’s just a fantasy
I cordially invite you to ask why can’t it be?
Now we can do nothing bout the past
But we can do something about the future that we have
We can make fast or we can make it last"
But the actions that one must to take to realise this fantasy is unclear. Without offering any concrete solutions though, this song really is just an optimistic fantasy. W.E.B. Debois, in his calls for action would offer concrete solution to his fellow Black men. He urged Black people to become politically conscious. He wanted people to vote for those that were sympathetic to the situation of Black people. Additionally he wanted better education to be made available to Black students. In his time, even though he was a brilliant scholar, he was prohibited from attending many universities. Even though such prohibitions have long been lifted, I'm quite sure Debois, if he were alive today, would be rallying for higher enrollment and graduation rates of Black at top universities. Debois also believed that the White man had a role to play helping to attain an equitable society. He believed the the police needed to be held accountable for injustices against Black people.
Obviously there is a lot more going on in this song that could easily be related to many other theorists, I just chose Dubois because a. I <3 him, and b. so does Lupe Fiasco (apparently.)
What I found really funny though, was that most of the chatter (posts) about this song, especially those on the page where the lyrics came from is about whether or not Lupe is dissing 50 cent in this song. I personally feel like that's besides the point. I'd way rather discuss how this song relates to society and weather thins like gang wars really can be blamed on slavery. Certainly the history of prejudice and racism needs to be included in a discussion about the gang was between the Blood and the Crips, but I think that poverty is just as likely and explanation as racism (the 2 often go hand in had though so its hard to separate them apart.)
No comments:
Post a Comment