Will Obama Kill Bling? Mary Battiata thinks maybe. ... Now that she mentions it, I kind of hope Obama's election will kill off much of hip-hop, at least the gangsta-inspired parts. But just killing off bling and gangsta fashion would be a start. ...
The comment was Klaus's reaction to Mary Battiata's piece in the Huffington Post where she hopes Obama's conservative fashion sense will trickle down to young, Negroes on the corners with their baggy pants and their underwhelming sense of self to inspire them to step-up their wardrobe. Like popular black politicians or civil rights leaders have EVER changed black fashion with a wave of their hand? ( Martin Luther King's suits or hard denim outfits didn't set off any fashion trends). That's because the civil rights movement was a political movement. Now the black power movement...that set off trends. Huey and Bobby and the Panthers nationalized the "righteous nigga on the corner" look with black leather blazer, scruffy afro, and the no-joke facial expression. Ron Karenga and Us set off the African garb craze and Kawanzaa. The Black Arts Movement changed the direction of black poetry and play wrighting. That's because black power dealt with culture. And it was culture that would not only trickle down to the black masses, but would cross over to the white majority (one result would be Radical Chic—thanks Mr. Wolf— and the other would be white folks "giving five" and hip-bumps on the Flip Wilson Show). The cultural exchange, along with that good ole civil rights legislation would give rise to the promise of Jesse Jackson becoming the first serious candidate for pres.
Which brings me to my point. As much as folks want to continuously bash hip-hop and the colored generation(black and brown) that spread it, they need to also understand that the popularization of that movement is what helped make an Obama possible. What initially set Obama's primary run a blaze was a new generation of young white folks, weaned on NWA, Public Enemy, Tupac, Snoop, and the urban souls of black folks. For this new generation, the idea of an African-American running things wasn't foreign (hell, young blacks have been telling them how to dress and speak for over 15 years) and they could totally relate to the idea of a black politician saying, in a sense, "keep it real" (forgive me for using a deathly overused term). This discussion could be looked at from a multitude of angles, but I don't have the time right now (maybe another entry). But the influence of hip hop on the phenomenon of Obama has as many positive effects as the negatives folks want to heap on it.
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