Blushing Funkadelics

www.jaylincoln.com

In a piece called “The Goddess & the Corruption of Love“, I mentioned Hip Hop to illustrate a point. In hindsight, after reflecting on Comments on the Conciliar Press site, my point may have been better made without the word HipHop. It was superfluous. A distraction.

I was hoping that a connection would develop between Goddess worship and orgies, which, historically, have been kin (as in various fertility cults).

Needless to say, I’m not a fan of the HipHop, Rap, Thug culture/industry. I’ll spare you my musical tastes, past history and pedigree. (I’ve seen Kiss, Prince, and Willie Nelson multiple times — once, all in the same year.) Suffice it to say that, musically, I’ve been around. When it comes to the current pop music culture, I agree with Stanley Crouch.

I once talked my parents into allowing me to buy an 8-Track tape of the Funkadelics. This was played in the family car, speakers in the back, parents in the front. To this day I thank God that they couldn’t understand the words. I was, what, 13? I knew what George Clinton and crew were saying (at least in part), but probably not what they meant. At least P-Funk knew nuance.

Much of what streams through today’s mainstream radio would make a Funkadelic blush.

The fact that some in the Black Community are fed up with the genre is music to my ears.

You may have seen them as you flipped through the channels past BET, MTV or VH1 — music videos with scantily clad, young African-American women, wildly gyrating while fully dressed rappers spew lyrics referring to them in demeaning terms.

The problem is, your children can see them, too.

It’s enough to make a mother cry foul.

“It is so pervasive that young black women who are looking to contemporary black hip-hop to find a sense of who they are would virtually only see women as sex objects,” says Rose.

“At some point, we have to say enough is enough.”