Do you equate Hip Hop listenership with shady activity?

[H20nly]

There is a lot of Hip Hop that isn't smack talking crap. Unfortunately, thats not what the mainstream is marketing.

Somebody earlier in the post said they felt safer in Oakland. I can relate to that statement. Oakland is chill, at least most of it. On that note there are a lot of Hip Hop acts from in or around Oakland (Berkeley) that don't promote gross misbehaviour (unless of course you are anti-marijuana) take Hieroglyphics, Zion I, Lyrics Born, The Pharcyde, or Blackalicious... That last one gets confused for Christian music in some states. Its way bigger than that.

dredd i knight has it right though, for the most part...

I'm white and groups of rednecks bother me. No regard for plant, animal, or different human life. I'm in California now but grew up in South Texas so I have experienced that first hand...

I think the problem is that Gangsta Rap and Hip Hop are different like Metal and Rock. Yeah they're the same at some level, but the one goes somewhere that the other is content not venturing... start jamming Slayer and Creed and try explaining that to your neighbors.

[aisling]

dredd i knight, I've said several times this has nothing to do with race so we can drop that from the general assumption in the main point.

Up here in Santa rosa, the hyphy motherfuckers are all middle class anglo decedents of conservative rednecks who made $$$$$ in real estate. They annoy me just as much as the spiritual baby boomers who pretend they are of eastern origin.........and have found enlightenment, yet are always bothered by the slightest thing that does not correspond with their agenda.

[beats me]

Part of it is a regional thing I'm sure. There aren't many large gatherings in public areas of rednecks in the Bay Area. The closest thing we have is the mostly docile Hippy. So depending on where you live there might be scarier elements than the Hip Hop crowd.

I should mention that I also enjoy Hip Hop but it's not the ONLY thing I listen to. Maybe if I heard these people mixing it up with some Classical or Smooth Jazz, or well, anything other than just Hip Hop I wouldn't be making these assumptions, as misguided as they may be.

@aisling, I can't imagine going from the main Bay to Santa Rosa, ack! But yeah, the frat boy thug scares me just as much.

[aisling]

@aisling, I can't imagine going from the main Bay to Santa Rosa, ack! But yeah, the frat boy thug scares me just as much.

we moved up here to raise kids......

[b0unce]

I associate hip-hop with mindless materialism and nothing more.

[Android Bishop]

Here in the LA hip hop scene (which has kinda evolved from hip hop to DnB to dubstep/grime now) I tend to equate hip hop heads with weed and hoodies. Seriously, everybody wears a hoodie.

Also grafitti.

And yeah they're kinda shady, but you see me at the shows too so I guess I'm shady

[aisling]

well this thread makes me want to watch "fear of a black hat" for the 104th time.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_a_Black_Hat

[beats me]

@aisling, I can't imagine going from the main Bay to Santa Rosa, ack! But yeah, the frat boy thug scares me just as much.

we moved up here to raise kids......

Probably a good decision, if for financial reasons if no other. But as I get older I also have less and less of a need to constantly go out, nice to have option though.

[v00d00ppl]

@v00d00ppl, I live in west San Jose a skip away from Santana Row so not exactly Thug-4-Life territory

@aisling, a good friend of mine lived on Grand Avenue for a couple years and we spent many a night at Kingman's bar. As you know that area is fairly mixed but even Kingman didn't want Hip Hop DJ nights because he "didn't want to attract the element". So the bar was more like being on the set of A Different World than a Dre video. Funny thing was being in Oakland in a mixed but largely black crowd I never once felt weird about it or uncomfortable. If I go into a bar or club with a largely black population in San Jose I always get these "who let whitey in" glares.

I know the area well. Funny thing is I loved Oakland. It made me feel as close to home as possible (philly/AC). All my east coast friends seem to feel comfertable in oakland. I live near Santa rosa now and miss the diversity and culture. OT, but I love the black muslim bakery in emeryville. They always get a kick out me, because I am bilingual and speak arabic, and have read as much or more of the Koran as they have, and can go toe to toe reciting verses and correct history, before I pull my ace out and inform them that I am in fact a bonified red sea pedestrian........Jew. That always leaves them confused.....

Jew in a black muslim bakery????that's like wearing a Broncos Jersey to the Raiders game

[starving student]

I'm so un-afraid of white people and black people that I feel very out of place in this thread but my advice would be let go of the fear and your problems will solve themselves.

[Tone Deft]

they're just as afraid of you as you are of them.

for me it's the Oakland Raiders logo, it's just an excuse to be an asshole.

Somebody earlier in the post said they felt safer in Oakland. I can relate to that statement. Oakland is chill, at least most of it.

Oakland is safe? LOLZ! highest murder rate in the state. there are nice parts of it but do you watch the news? cops getting shot, the cops shooting that guy in BART on New Years (cop claims to have confused his gun with his tazer!) there are definitely nice parts of town, but Oakland is in trouble these days.

On that note there are a lot of Hip Hop acts from in or around Oakland (Berkeley) that don't promote gross misbehaviour (unless of course you are anti-marijuana) take Hieroglyphics, Zion I, Lyrics Born, The Pharcyde, or Blackalicious...

Pharcyde is from LA, Lyrics Born and Blackalicious are from Davis.

I'm white and groups of rednecks bother me.

agreed.

I think the problem is that Gangsta Rap and Hip Hop are different like Metal and Rock.

again and again, Hip Hop is a culture, rap is an art form. rap is a subset of Hip Hop.

[Tone Deft]

Jew in a black muslim bakery????that's like wearing a Broncos Jersey to the Raiders game

only time I went to a Raiders game was with some friends who were Broncos fans (I hate both teams). holy shit, what a creepy disgusting group of people. Raiders fans were punching each other in the face, and those were the women. lots of shredded Broncos jerseys in the hallways, bunch of a-holes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSje5N0VzlY <-- Michael Bolton listens to Gangsta Rap (video gets weird after a bit.)

[scott nathaniel]

Am I alone in this "I must be old/kids today" paranoia?

Not really. You are being a bit presumptuous if you sweep these strokes across everyone who listens to this type of music. I make the same mistakes, too, though.
Like here, in this forum: I thought most posters were snotty, spoiled, privilegeded 16 year old mac users who hide in their Mc'mansions. I was wrong. It appears they are mostly snotty, spoiled, and privileged 35 year olds who hide in their Mc'mansions. So, don't make your genralizations absolute. But, I'm sure your neighbors are annoying putzes, I have had the same neighbors.

[aisling]

@v00d00ppl, I live in west San Jose a skip away from Santana Row so not exactly Thug-4-Life territory

@aisling, a good friend of mine lived on Grand Avenue for a couple years and we spent many a night at Kingman's bar. As you know that area is fairly mixed but even Kingman didn't want Hip Hop DJ nights because he "didn't want to attract the element". So the bar was more like being on the set of A Different World than a Dre video. Funny thing was being in Oakland in a mixed but largely black crowd I never once felt weird about it or uncomfortable. If I go into a bar or club with a largely black population in San Jose I always get these "who let whitey in" glares.

I know the area well. Funny thing is I loved Oakland. It made me feel as close to home as possible (philly/AC). All my east coast friends seem to feel comfertable in oakland. I live near Santa rosa now and miss the diversity and culture. OT, but I love the black muslim bakery in emeryville. They always get a kick out me, because I am bilingual and speak arabic, and have read as much or more of the Koran as they have, and can go toe to toe reciting verses and correct history, before I pull my ace out and inform them that I am in fact a bonified red sea pedestrian........Jew. That always leaves them confused.....

Jew in a black muslim bakery????that's like wearing a Broncos Jersey to the Raiders game

and a crazy one at that.....did I ever tell you about the time after reading my Malcolm X autobiography for a college class, I finagled my long haired blond friend (who would get stopped, harassed and beat up by the NJ cops every Tues. and thurs for the way he looked) to march down with me at 11:00 p.m. at night to the local Mosque and proclaim our sincerity and solidarity with the struggles against the capitalist establishment. It was some twiddle dee and twiddle dum(b) shit. They threw us up against the wall, frisked us.....About to get mid-evil on us...and then "sir shalom a-lot" (my self) begins to throw down the ill and funky rhymes in arabic. They stop stunned, and I continue.......3 hours later 25 of them and us 2 little pathetic white guys are talking, laughing, and really connecting.....We made some serious cross cultural inroads that Atlantic City NJ had never experienced before! We would invite them to come to our local college festivals (stockton state) and set a table to sell their incense, and oils......Gosh I miss having the balls to do those things....Now days I am all worried about the future, whether I am a good parent, Global warming.......And other nonsense that I have no control over.

[beats me]

I don't think the debate of what is hip hop and rap exactly enters into it because I don't think the people I am talking about know either or care, but yeah, it's not just the music, it's displaying a certain lifestyle and posturing.

It has been engrained in me since an early age to have an irrational fear about the safety of myself and property with almost zero personal experience. I should probably just let it go until proven otherwise.

But last night when my roommate and I watched our neighbor hop his railing at about 10:30 my roommate turned to me and said "yup, time to go to Home Depot and get that sliding glass door bolt" and I was sold. All it takes is one other person to slightly share my irrational concerns and I'm "ah crap, it's going down!"