New York Daily News - News & Views Columnists - Stanley Crouch: Hip hop exhibit sure to sugarcoat the hate

New York Daily News - News & Views Columnists - Stanley Crouch: Hip hop exhibit sure to sugarcoat the hateHip hop exhibit sure to sugarcoat the hate

According to rap mogul Russell Simmons, hip hop is "the only real description of the suffering of our people." Well, not quite. Perhaps Simmons is referring to those early rap recordings that made political complaints. But the bulk of what we know is that rap itself is part of the suffering of black people.

This arrives through a media that has been bamboozled into thinking the expression of "black culture" can be reduced to gold teeth, pistol-waving, hedonism, whorishness, pathological narcissism, misogyny, drop-down pants and illiteracy. In context, Simmons was quoted as he addressed a New York press conference to announce that the Smithsonian Institution is collecting materials for a future rap exhibit in Washington.

This is not especially surprising, given the fact that the Metropolitan Museum of Art genuflected before the world of rock 'n' roll. The museum presented in 1999 the exhibit "Rock Style." It was "made possible" by Tommy Hilfiger, Conde Nast and the Estee Lauder combine.

We can now fall back on our most cynical responses to contemporary phenomena and say, as so many do, "If there is enough money involved, anything is possible."

Make no mistake, what we always see in our time is the demand for respectability. It seems to have had a price on its head for a while now. When Elvis Presley and the early rock 'n' roll bunch appeared, they knew what they were and so did their fans: entertainers followed by teenagers. With the '60s came all of the pretensions and college students, assuming that whatever they liked should get the same credibility as what adults appreciated. We then saw the arrival of rock magazines.

It did not take long for the hustlers in rap to get the drift. Defend your product against charges of obscenity by saying it is "reporting from the streets." Take the position that being repulsed by the gangsta lifestyle and philosophy is no more than cultural racism. Soon, insecure black academics began to champion this "art form" on our campuses. Of course, those campuses had already been wounded by courses in rock 'n' roll.

One wonders how much time the Smithsonian will devote to the many murders, shooting and violence surrounding rap. Will there be autopsy pictures of Tupac Shakur and others? One also wonders if visitors to the exhibit will learn about the major campaign against the worst of hip hop that fizzled under exceedingly poor leadership at Essence magazine.

Both sides of the story are demanded in many places, but almost never in the world of popular muck. Especially if it makes black hustlers wealthy.

Originally published on March 2, 2006