The Darker Side of Black - ACE274.4

Writer and Cultural Critic, Professor Tricia Rose, says rap is playing on stereotypes of black people as marginal, undercover, sexual. However, she suggests that it is often mocking and need not be taken too literally. Musician/Public Enemy, Chuck D, says people treat the music "like a movie". More of Real Compton City G’s. West compares rappers’ ideas to those of American society generally, "a gun-fighter nation", which has tried "to gain access to property and power and pleasure by any means", and talks of "a nihilistic response to a nihilistic situation". Ranks talking about the violence of Jamaican neighbourhood he grew up in. Street scenes in Jamaica. Kingston Legal Aid Clinic, Florizelle O’Connor, talks about "the power of the gun" in support of political parties which reward their supporters when they get into power. Lawyer, Richard Hart, talking about American response, through the CIA, to Caribbean recognition of Cuba, which set up a political opposition and introduced news weapons into Jamaica. Manley believes that the guns came in in support of drug dealing rather than politics. Ranks says that dancehall performers only talk about guns as they are so common in Jamaican society, but they don’t have any contact with them. Armed guards. O’Connor talking about violence and the use of language which now uses words in completely opposite ways to their original meanings. Video version of Buju Banton’s Boom Bye Bye (Footage courtesy of "The Word", Planet 24 Ltd., Channel Four TV). O’Connor says that the song "is faithfully recording the attitude of the vast majority of Jamaicans towards homosexuals" as well as faithfully recording the gunshot sounds". She doesn’t believe that anyone expects the song to incite people to harass homosexuals.