FLOTUS Invites Rapper Who Praises Cop-Killer to WH
posted at 1:15 pm on May 11, 2011 by Howard Portnoy
[ Culture ]
In 2009, on the occasion of the first ever White House “poetry slam,” event organizer Michelle Obama spoke to the press of her desire to “open up the White House and remind people this is the people’s house.”
So guess who’s coming to dinner at your house? The answer, as you probably already knew, is the rapper who goes by the name Common, the synonyms for which word—vulgar, ordinary—suggest a talent for naming. Whether Common, who was born Lonnie Lynn, Jr., has a talent for anything else is in the eye of the beholder.
Judging from the lyrics to his “Song for Assata,” his talent for recording historical events accurately is non-existent:
There were lights and sirens, gunshots firin
Cover your eyes as I describe a scene so violent
Seemed like a bad dream, she laid in a blood puddle
Blood bubbled in her chest, cold air brushed against open flesh
No room to rest, pain consumed each breath
Shot twice wit her hands up
Police questioned but shot before she answered
One panther lost his life, the other ran for his
Scandalous the police were as they kicked and beat her
Comprehension she was beyond, tryna hold on
To life.
The description is a fanciful account of the apprehension by police of Assata Shakur (aka Joanne Chesimard), who was convicted in 1973 for the murder of a state trooper and sentenced to life plus 33 years.
Interestingly, there is nothing in the lyrics about Chesimard-Shakur’s criminal history (bank robbery, attempted murder, kidnapping) prior to or including the shootout with New Jersey state police that claimed the life of trooper Werner Foerster. Nor is there mention of her prison escape in 1979 or her life since in Cuba, where she was granted asylum.
None of this apparently matters to the First Lady, who is perhaps more of an aficionado of the songs from Common’s “misogynist” period, which include the “diss” tune “The Bitch in Yoo”:
A bitch nigga wit an attitude named cube
Step to com wit a feud
Now what the f**k I look like dissing a whole coast
You ain’t made sh*t dope since amerikkka’s most
Wanted to cease from the midwest to the east
On the d*ck of the east for your 1st release
Your lease is up at the crib, house niggaz get evicted.
A number of commentators, including blogger Keli Goff, have come to Common’s defense. Appearing on FOX News Channel’s On the Record with guest host Martha McCallum last night, Goff proclaimed that
Common is one of the good guys in hip-hop. I mean, he’s one of the people who’s known for not putting the misogynistic lyrics out there. [Ed.’s note: Apparently Goff is not an aficionado of the songs from Common’s "misogynist" period.]
NBC also seemed to defend the rapper’s appearance at the White House, maintaining that “even casual hip-hop fans wouldn’t characterize him as a controversial rapper,” which is an interesting line of reasoning. It is tantamount to acknowledging that some of the performers of this genre create material that is so pernicious and asocial that the following lyrics are not:
So my neighbors won’t hear the sparks as the lead gets pumped
Its a pre-(?) agreement in the cement jungle
Kill each other over money and white boys for fun.
In case you’re wondering, the lines are from another Common song, “Don’t Come My Way.”
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rappers don’t rap truth to power, they rap truth to their ignorance, truth to their racism, truth to their misogynist bigotry and truth to their mroal decay.
AH_C on May 11, 2011 at 2:18 PM
mo, since you and bho have been in the wh, it is not the American citizens house! You have made it a laughing stock before the world. Both you, mo and bho, are totally void of class!
L
letget on May 11, 2011 at 2:25 PM
Well, but the cops behave “stupidly,” so what do they expect?
J.E. Dyer on May 11, 2011 at 3:37 PM
J.E., point taken. Obviously the NJ trooper Joanne Chesimard shot to death and the one should wounded had both acted stupidly and had it coming.
Btw, the WH has now issued a statement that will be eerily familiar to those who remember the Rev. Wright kerfuffle. Namely, Obama has said he doesn’t support everything that Common has written. He didn’t specifically address the lyric “Kill each other over money and white boys for fun” but one can assume that Obama–who himself is half white–finds that lyric offensive.
Howard Portnoy on May 11, 2011 at 4:46 PM
Well, there you go, HP. They don’t support everything Common has written.
The problem, of course, is finding anything he’s written that isn’t an embarrassment to whatever group you filter him into: men, black men, American black men, etc.
In reminding me of Gatesgate, this incident recalls for me one of the funniest things to come out of that episode. Gates was talking about how everyone in his neighborhood in Martha’s Vineyard knew him. They’d see him riding by on his bike, and — in Gates’ words — they’d say to each other, “There goes Henry Louis Gates Jr!”
I tend to call people I know things like “Hank” or “Skip,” but I guess they do things differently in Martha’s Vineyard.
J.E. Dyer on May 11, 2011 at 6:00 PM
SHIZZLE.
hillbillyjim on May 11, 2011 at 8:12 PM
Johnny Cash Rules!!!!
Nothing wrong with singing about murder and then going to the white house Portnoy.
lexhamfox on May 12, 2011 at 4:16 AM
Remind me when Johnny Cash sang: “Kill each other over money and white boys for fun.” Was it before or after he immortalized the lyric “Now what the f**k I look like dissing a whole coast/You ain’t made sh*t dope since amerikkka’s most”?
Howard Portnoy on May 12, 2011 at 9:07 AM
Here’s an awesome clip of Common inciting a crowd to violence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNLmi0_216g
Dave Rywall on May 12, 2011 at 1:07 PM
Indeed and the candidates immediately rushed out to invite Ted to their rallies. TN got lots of grief over that, but bottomline, he pales in contrast to Ice-T, Common, Akon and all the other gangstas. But keep trying.
BTW, how’s that conservative hope and change working out for ya up there in the Great White North? Bwahaha, your party got creamed and now suck greening eggs
AH_C on May 13, 2011 at 2:50 PM