Nas' Black and White Christmas |
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| Written by Kris Millett |
| Sunday, 02 December 2007 19:00 |
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"So this is Christmas," as somebody sang a long time ago, a frustrating time for people who care about and perhaps even buy music. The marketplace is a wasteland, with music stores hoping to stuff your stockings with banal ‘greatest hits’ collections and albums of re-interpreted Christmas standards that have already been recorded by artists as diverse as Bing Crosby and David Bowie. Music “fans” are left to wait through the holiday season with impatience, as no serious artist will release a new original recording until late January or February of next year, except this time for one. 
On December 11, nestled on the ‘new release’ shelves alongside Michael Bolton’s A Swingin’ Christmas, A Disney Channel Holiday, Josh Groban’s Noel and Rick Springfield’s Christmas With You, will be the latest album from Hip Hop artist Nas, who has chosen a one-word title for his latest release: Nigger. That’s right, Nas isn’t going with the term ‘Nigga’ which many tolerant white people quite often feel comfortable slipping into conversation (when only around other white people), but ‘Nigger,’ the original spelling revealing the word in all its naked horror. Let’s put aside questions such as: Will record stores even carry the album? How could one possibly run a marking campaign for this? How could a record company ever possibly green-light a project such as this? And, let’s go straight to the immediate public response after Nas’ first announced it at a mid-October concert: “The title using the ‘N’ word is morally offensive and socially distasteful,” a press release from Rev. Jesse Jackson read. “Nas has the right to degrade and denigrate in the name of free speech, but there is no honour in it. I wish he would use his talents to lift up and inspire, not degrade.” Taking it one step further was, of course, Rev. Al Sharpton, who is the leader of a movement to abolish the word ‘nigger,’ making its mere utterance a hate crime: “What [Nas] is doing is helping out the racists. People [who use the term in their music] wouldn’t put out a record against whites or cops or Jews because they ain’t got the guts to do that. They only got the guts to beat up on their own.” I guess he doesn’t remember “Cop Killer.” 50 Cent, from the video shoot for his latest single, “I Still Kill,” said: “Nas sucks. It’s nonsense, man. That’s a stupid name. It doesn’t make sense. Why would you title it that? You helped him out because you asked me [about it], and people who are interested in me would like to hear the answer. But other than that, there’s nothing interesting in that. It’s just for shock value.” Prince so far as been unavailable for comment. While I haven’t a shred of legitimacy to comment on the statements of these popular African-American figures, allow me to. First off, 50 Cent’s comments are precious. His beef with Nas in this case is absurd. Imagine Howard Stern taking issue with Don Imus’ inflammatory rhetoric. Yes, Nas has at times in his career looked to provoke -- his last album was titled Hip Hop Is Dead; however, 50 Cent’s whole career has been based on the shock value of his carefully-crafted image as a murderous street thug. Nas wants you to think about whether Rap is dead as an art form; whereas, 50 Cent wants you to think about how he once let off 21 shots at a time. As for Jackson and Sharpton… I don’t know. I do wish the views of these Black leaders on music were less harmonious with those of Wal-Mart. I don’t know if it’s right or wrong to name an album Nigger. But, if you’re looking to diffuse or combat the negative effect of the racial stigma attached to the word, trying to abolish its usage will certainly do the opposite. Making it a hate crime will give ‘nigger’ more sting than ever, and will only encourage racists to use it against those they hate. Non-racists (and I’d like to lump myself into that category, in case you were wondering) are too terrified to ever say it anyway. I’m afraid to even utter the word to myself, alone in my apartment, but I obviously have no problem typing it out over a Ultimately, I just wish that Jackson and Sharpton, people who have dedicated their lives to black empowerment, would not try to stop a black man from saying what he wants. Nas himself has offered little explanation for the album’s titling beyond one statement to MTV News, saying in his usual poetic manner: “I wanna make the word easy on muthafuckas’ ears. You see how white boys ain’t mad at ‘cracker’ ‘cause it don’t have the same sting as ‘nigger’? I want ‘nigger’ to have less meaning than ‘cracker.’” He could have added how some homosexuals no longer take offense to, in fact even derive empowerment from, the words ‘gay’ or ‘queer,’ the derogatory labels of the past. The fight to abolish these words did not soften their meaning. Instead this was achieved by exposing them to the public light, with time slowly fading their hateful meanings. Who knows if the same will work for the “N-word”? I was hoping to present some more examples of words losing their hateful sting through exposure but it feels like we’re going in the opposite direction. Certainly pretending the word doesn’t exist won’t help. It is an ugly word. But so is the concept of slavery. I guess we could pretend the word ‘nigger’ never existed, and I suppose we could also pretend Shaquille O’Neill is Irish. Maybe his Great Grandpa was. So far, the entire Rap community has not come out against Nas. Rap-artist Common has publicly supported Nas’ decision, saying “Nas is always bringing something for us to think about. He’s making statements. That’s something we need in Hip Hop. Last Poets did it, Gil Scott-Heron did it, Marvin Gaye did it. We gotta keep making statements.” Since Prince is still not returning my calls, I’ll let Method Man have the last word on this: “I know a word worse than ‘nigger’: Darfur. Real talk. I’d like to see Reverend Al take a walk out there. Let’s stop focusing on the wrong shit.” In next month’s edition of Cult(ure) – The Kris Millett album review of Nas’ Nigger. Will it actually come out? Will the title be changed? Will anyone care about what Nas actually has to say on the album? All your questions will be answered provided this whole thing is not an elaborate hoax. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Let’s hope it’s a good one. Without any fear.., niggas!
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