The Infinite Dial

One of the ironies of the Imus firing is the strange coalition that it has brought to the debate about lyrics in Hip-Hop. Imus' supporters, many of who quickly defaulted to, "Yeah? Well, what about rap?" as their defense, have suddenly found themselves on the same side of the debate with the African-American community leaders, columnists and even Hip-hop artists who have publicly bemoaned the current state of the genre for the last few years. The column that begins with, “I always loved Hip-Hop but I can’t excuse what my kids are listening to” has become an Op-Ed perennial around the country over the last year, but Jason Whitlock’s Kansas City Star piece, “Imus Isn’t The Real Bad Guy” has been widely circulated since last Wednesday by those hoping to make it part of the Imus debate.

So far, it’s working. The “What About Hip-Hop?” story was prominent on CNN, among other places, throughout the weekend. And in the same way that liberal meets conservative in some strange places, we now have those who sincerely want to advance a dialogue about what impact certain language has on society joined by those who mostly hope to minimize a separate offense. The most extreme manifestation of the "What About Rap" argument is Phil Mushnick's New York Post column that faults the Rutgers’ women’s basketball team for not having already raised their collective voices about misogyny in Rap.

Much of the press coverage I’ve seen is treating these complaints as being of a piece. But there’s a difference between being upset that Hip-Hop is not what it was in 1979 and just not having ever liked it since 1979. Hip-Hop, for various reasons, has lost the “only current music that matters” status that it enjoyed in the early part of this decade. There are internal critics who see addressing its perceived lyrical negativity as a way of restoring that status. There are a lot of external critics who would be happy to see Hip-Hop further marginalized. And given radio’s history of backing away from Hip-Hop as if burned in the early ‘90s, they could easily get their wish. Top 40 PDs, in particular, won’t go looking for “positive” Hip-Hop to fill the void, they’ll just play more Maroon 5 and Justin Timberlake (whose recent hits have language issues of their own).

For many of those looking to move Hip-Hop forward, that's not how the story is supposed to end. One of the themes in this weekend’s CNN coverage was that many of the previous critics were happy to finally have the story brought to the fore. But the debate about Hip-Hop lyrics deserves to be conducted by people who are sincere about improving it. And the best way to ensure that is to demand that it be conducted separately from the Imus fallout.