Hip-hop artist Nas making a bold statement with his yet-to-be released album

The rapper Nas has thrust the word “nigger” back into the limelight by making it the title of his new album. Such a move seems improbably provocative given the increased public scrutiny hip-hop has received in the wake of the Michael Richards and Don Imus incidents.

Richards, who played Kramer on TV’s Seinfeld, spewed a “nigger”-laden diatribe at a Los Angeles comedy club in 2006. And in 2007, shock jock Imus infamously called the Rutgers University women’s basketball team “nappy-headed hos.”

Although both of them are middle-aged white men who are unlikely to be rap fans, it was hip-hop that absorbed the public blame for their remarks. The genre has been on a defensive back step ever since.

To help blunt the rising public media criticism, hip-hop luminaries like Russell Simmons, the co-founder and former CEO of Def Jam Records—the label on which Nas now records—launched a campaign urging radio stations and other media not to air the words “bitch,” “ho” and “nigger.”

The public clamor prompted politicians around the nation to get in on the act. Together with civil rights forces (like the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, the Rev. Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition and the NAACP), they launched multifaceted crusades to ban words that denigrate the black community. The NAACP held a widely publicized burial ceremony for the N-word at its national convention in Detroit last July 9.

Word-banning crusaders are also using the municipal arena to raise consciousness. Baltimore, Los Angeles and New York City all have passed nonbinding, symbolic resolutions banning variations of the word nigger. This public clamor has congealed into a censorious campaign to squelch bad words. The rap world is a major target of these efforts, and many hip-hop executives are taking cover.

By choosing Nigger as a title, Nas halts hip-hop’s retreat. Born Nasir Jones, the Queens native has long been considered one of hip-hop’s most imaginative lyricists. His richly detailed narratives are among the most vividly rendered wordscapes of urban America available, and many aficionados of the genre rate him as one of the best rappers ever.

Nas told MTV News that he chose the title to help weaken the word. “We’re taking power from the word,” he said. “You see how white boys ain’t mad at ‘cracker’ cause it don’t have the same sting as ‘nigger?’ I want ‘nigger’ to have less meaning than ‘cracker.’ “

The album was originally slated to be released last December, but was pushed back to February during Black History Month. Now it appears the album won’t be released until April 22. Nas and his wife, Kelis, both appeared on the Grammy Awards Feb. 10 sporting T-shirts with the word, and no doubt raising some eyebrows.

Some have charged that his motive was pure capitalism. Even some of his supporters, like rapper LL Cool J, attribute marketing motives to Nas’ decision. However, it seems more likely that Nas will lose market share because of his controversial album. (He certainly will lose access to major retail outlets.)

There initially were tales of resistance from Nas’ record company, Def Jam (a part of Vivendi’s Universal Music Group), but company officials since have expressed solid support for the album.

Predictably, Jackson and Sharpton have lambasted Nas for his decision, Fox News has denounced him, and New York State Assembly member Hakeem Jeffries is urging the New York Comptroller to pull an $84 million state pension fund invested in Def Jam’s parent company, Vivendi, unless the title of the album is changed.

This enthusiastic campaign against a word is not just a distraction from real issues, it is a debilitating diversion. Words are symbols with no intrinsic value. They derive their meaning from social context. Ascribing inherent qualities to symbols is the very definition of idolatry. Devoting such energy to attacking them is like Cervantes’ Don Quixote tilting vainly at windmills, wasting precious resources.

What’s worse, this animosity against symbols awakens a censorious, book-burning proclivity that lurks in humanity’s lizard brain. It is an atavistic impulse that must be closely monitored lest it manifest as fascist politics.

There is no doubt that the word has an unprecedented history of pain and suppression and that many African Americans were socialized with that sensibility. They question if such a loathsome symbol of racist subordination could ever be transformed into a word of a different color. In fact, many (like those who advocate burying the word) have concluded that the word is indelibly tainted by its racist pedigree.

But no taint is indelible.

In some ways, critics are correct about hip-hop’s culpability in our current cultural dispute about symbols. Among other things, the genre may have performed an act of etymological alchemy by transforming a verbal weapon into a term of endearment. Those who use the word with malicious intent may still be able to inflict pain, but they are brandishing a weakening weapon. The word is being so relentlessly denuded it may one day be effectively defused. Nas’ album continues that process

By Salim Muwakkil

http://www.newsreview.com/

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Nas “Geatest Hits” CD will go live on November 6… According to Columbia Records Press Realease…

Check the PR message:

NEW YORK, Oct. 10 /PRNewswire/ — Columbia Records announces the
upcoming release of Greatest Hits, the definitive collection of classic
tracks and more from the pioneering hip-hop icon Nas. Nas’ Greatest Hits
will be available in stores and online on Tuesday, November 6.

A career-spanning retrospective which also serves as an ideal
introduction to Nas’ most unforgettable tracks, Greatest Hits reprises 12
essential cuts culled from the artist’s monumental Columbia Records catalog
– from 1994’s Illmatic, one of the most influential albums in hip-hop
history, through 2004’s double disc masterpiece Street Disciple — while
premiering 2 newly recorded songs: “Surviving The Times” and “Less Than An
Hour,” featuring Cee- Lo, new theme music created for the soundtrack for
“Rush Hour 3.”
Since the 1994 release of Illmatic, the blueprint album which laid the
foundation for East Coast hip-hop in the 90s while establishing Nas as one
of hip-hop’s most electrifying and influential urban street poets, Nas
continues to be one of hip-hop’s most potent, provocative, and abiding
forces with a string of chart-topping RIAA gold and platinum successes to
his credit: Illmatic (1994); It Was Written (1996); “Street Dreams” (1997);
I Am…The Autobiography (1999); Nastradamus (1999); Stillmatic (2002); The
Lost Tapes (2002); God’s Son (2002); Street’s Disciple (2004); and Hip Hop
Is Dead (2006).
More than 20 million Nas albums, singles, and digital tracks have been
sold worldwide since the release of Illmatic in 1994.
NAS - GREATEST HITS - Tracklisting

1) Surviving The Times (newly recorded)
2) Less than an Hour (Theme from Rush Hour 3) (newly recorded)
3) It Ain’t Hard to Tell (from Illmatic)
4) Life’s A Bitch (from Illmatic)
5) N.Y. State of Mind (from Illmatic)
6) One Love (from Illmatic)
7) If I Ruled the World (Imagine That) (from It Was Written)
Street Dreams (Remix) Feat. R. Kelly (original from It Was Written;
remix from 2002’s From Illmatic to Stillmatic: The Remixes EP)
9) Hate Me Now Feat. Puff Daddy (from I Am … The Autobiography)
10) One Mic (from Stillmatic)
11) Got Ur Self A … (from Stillmatic)
12) Made You Look (from God’s Son)
13) I Can (from God’s Son)
14) Bridging the Gap Feat. Olu Dara (from Street’s Disciple)

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Even legendary MC Nas says he’s excited about the competition between his two mic peers.

“I love what’s happening,” Nas said. “At first, with the sh– 50’s doing [creating controversy], I thought it was disgraceful that he [would need] Kanye West to help him sell records after last year, when he talked [trash] about everybody. But now I see what he did is something he needed to do to make people pay attention to him. I look at the excitement of it.”

Nas added that he had enjoyed Kanye’s album and that he was also interested in hearing what 50 was bringing to the table with Curtis.

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Nas shook things up by claiming Hip-Hop is Dead with his last album. Now, he’s ready for the next release.

“I was on the Virgin Islands on New Year’s Day, I got the news I had another #1 album. I think I made some heads turn. I did my thing: no radio. Not much radio spins. Now I wanna have fun with the radio. I’ll still try to reach for a higher ground and come sometime in December,” he told MTV.

“I’m really into [the idea of having] a summer album…But they say the fourth quarter is for big dogs. I been doing the fourth quarter for years, so I guess I’m at home in the fourth.”

He noted that he is halfway done with the project and may still work with Will.i.am, DJ Premier and others. For now, he’s holding off on all of the details.

He also spoke on Rock the Bells.

“That was amazing…I wasn’t on all the dates. It’s a great tour. We had 40,000 people in San Francisco alone. Wu-Tang were incredible. I’m thinking about doing the next one and taking it global. I’m thinking about jumping in with [the promoters] and taking it all the way global.”

Aside from his next album on Def Jam, Sony is still slated to release a Greatest Hits compilation of Nas tracks including a couple of new Nas tracks.

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Nas joined forces with John Mayer, Phil Vassar and the Dave Mathews Band on Thursday night to bring “A Concert for Virginia Tech” to the college’s Blacksburg campus. According to The Richmond Times-Dispatch, the rapper cheekily dedicated the last song of his set, “Hate Me Now,” to TV pundit Bill O’Reilly, who had previously said it was an “abomination” and “atrocity” that Nas was going to perform at the free concert. “For those who don’t understand what Nas is about, like that chump Bill O’Reilly, I got a song for you,” he said before breaking into the tune. More than 45,000 people reportedly attended the concert. …

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You can add Nas to the growing list of MCs who have responded to controversial television and radio personality Bill O’Reilly.

During a recent airing of his Fox News show, “The O’Reilly Factor,” the commentator blasted Nas’ free concert for the students of Virginia Tech as an “abomination” and “atrocity.” O’Reilly referred to Nas — or “Nazz,” as the TV host pronounced it — as a “gangsta rapper” and said his lyrics are as “violent as they come,” citing songs such as “Shoot ‘Em Up,” “One Mic,” Ether” and “Made U Look” as his musical history of violence. (The show also displayed some of Nas’ concert footage and videos, plus the scene where Jay-Z gets shot in the video for “99 Problems.”) O’Reilly called Virginia Tech President Charles W. Steger “a villain” for allowing Nas to perform.

“Having a rapper who trades in violence perform at Virginia Tech insults the victims, the university and the entire commonwealth,” O’Reilly declared. The Nas controversy has been the topic of several of his shows.

Nas spoke exclusively to MTV News on Wednesday, dismissing his detractor.

“It’s what he’s supposed to do. He has an image to uphold,” Nas said initially, laughing it off.

But the conversation took a more serious turn when Nas described O’Reilly’s stance against him — and previous outbursts against peers such as Snoop Dogg and Ludacris (see “Ludacris Barks Back At Pepsi, O’Reilly; P-Roach Antics Not An Issue For Soda Giant”) — as being prejudiced and outdated.

“He’s a racist,” Nas said. “Everybody has a marketing plan; his marketing plan is racism.

“He doesn’t understand the younger generation. He deals with the past,” Nas continued. “The people he represents are Republican, older, a generation that has nothing to do with the reality of what’s happening now with my generation. … He’s not really on my radar. People like him are supposed to be taught and people like me are supposed to let n—as like him know. I don’t take him serious. His sh– is all about getting ratings or whatever. I wouldn’t honor anything Bill O’Reilly has to say. It just shows you what bloodsuckers do: They abuse something like the Virginia Tech [tragedy] for show ratings. You can’t talk to a person like that.”

Nas maintained that some of his harsher lyrics are no more rigid than the reality that inspired them.

“Here’s somebody that speaks about America in his music, and the community that I come from has the same kind of violence as Virginia Tech,” the legendary rapper said about himself. “It’s unnecessary, stupid violence. Hip-hop is a part of the generation of [Virginia Tech] as well as alternative and pop and rock. Hip-hop is a part of that. That’s why I’m [performing at the concert]. With Bill O’Reilly, it doesn’t raise an eyebrow to me because it’s garbage, its bullsh–. He has nothing to do with the real people who go to school or the parents who had to endure that tragedy.”

The New York MC also opined that O’Reilly should be exploring the inspiration for music’s depictions of violence instead of making blanket statements about the content itself.

“Let him ask why I made the songs I made,” Nas said. “It didn’t come from nowhere. It came from this country. I’m not talking about Russia in my music. I’ve never been to Russia. I’m not talking about Africa, Switzerland, China. I’m talking about me being American and growing up in a crazy world and helping to reflect all different sides of life. I got songs also about totally different things — ‘Black Girl Lost,’ you feel what I’m saying?”

Besides O’Reilly, seven families of the victims of the Virginia Tech tragedy have spoken out against Nas performing, and there was an editorial in the school newspaper saying it would be a poor choice for the rapper to perform some of his songs where he talks about guns.

University officials responded by saying the announcement of the concert has been getting overwhelmingly positive feedback and that the lineup would not be changed.

Despite the controversy, Nas says he was asked by the school to perform and there are many people who would be disappointed if he did not come.

“I’m still coming,” he reiterated. “Unfortunately, man, a lot of places in America have to deal with unnecessary violence. Somebody like me who knows it firsthand and could relate, … I had a best friend killed, plenty other friends killed. I been through it. I seen it. My music reflects reality. I think that’s what makes it important that I come through and show love to those people [at Virginia Tech]. They deserve it.”

“A Concert for Virginia Tech” takes place at the school Thursday (September 6). John Mayer, Phil Vassar and the Dave Mathews Band will also perform. A spokesperson for O’Reilly was unavailable for comment.

A Canadian venue, which had agreed to hold an election drive for University students, has reportedly backed out after Nas was added to the event, claiming the rapper’s lyrics promote violence.

According to CBC News, the Ottawa Congress Centre had agreed with student groups from Carleton University and the University of Ottawa to host “Rock the Vote,” an event to encourage students to vote in the upcoming Ontario election.

But after confirming Nas as their headlining act, the student groups were told the concert could not go on as planned. The event was scheduled to take place on October 1st.

Isaac Cockburn, vice president of student issues for the Carleton University Students’ Association, told CBC News that the students were told the Ottawa Congress Centre has a policy against rap music and that Nas’ lyrics promote violence.

Cockburn claimed that Peter Seguin, vice president of food and beverage for the centre, told him the centre has a policy banning hip-hop and rap.

“He in fact said that he’d had over 200 requests for hip-hop shows that he’s turned down over the past couple of years,” Cockburn explained. “He said that it was an increased security risk and that it was a vulnerability that the Congress Centre was not willing to take on.”

Cockburn says the students had been negotiating with the centre about the event since July and did not think picking Nas would be an issue because the hard rock band Alexisonfire played there last September.

Lynne Martichenko, the Congress Centre’s spokesperson, denied that neither Nas nor hip-hop was the problem. She said the event was not suitable for the Congress Centre room the students tried to book, which has new carpets and chandeliers.

She emphasized the center is designed for meetings, trade shows, and conventions. She also revealed that the students had not signed any contract with the Congress Centre and they should find a venue which was more appropriate.

Martichenko also mentioned the controversy caused by Nas’ forthcoming performance at a memorial concert in Virginia Tech next month.

Earlier this year, Seung Hui-Cho, a Virginia Tech student, opened fire on several students and staff members of campus killing 32 people and then committing suicide.

Several families of the victims of the shooting say that Nas’ inclusion to the event is disrespectful for the people killed, because of his violent lyrics.

Despite their complaints , Nas is still scheduled to perform at Virginia Tech on September 6 alongside the Dave Mathews Band and John Mayer.

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