gangster rap: Proof that the englightenment was in vain?

A recent book review by Mark Steyn inspired me to write about something that's been nagging at me from the back of my mind for a long time now. The book by Juan Williams is about the deplorable situation of America's black people and their false prophets (Al Sharpton will not like this book) but Steyn quotes some passages that tackle one of today's most depressing phenomena. I'm talking of course about 'gangster rap.'
I don't have a problem with rap in general and my CD collection has a few rappers I respect- Nas, A tribe called Quest, Pharcyde, Roots, Common- but today rap has mutated into something so ugly and dangerous that it's not funny anymore. I know I'm going to sound like a grumpy old man but fuck it. Anyway Steyn quotes some passages from the book that are absolutely spot on.

Quote:
The defence of gangster rap, with its pride in guns and murder, was
that it was all about 'keeping it real.' In that stunning perversion of black culture, anyone who spoke against the self-destructive core of gangster rap was put down as acting white."

Williams continues:
"Keepin' it real" means the rapper Nelly making a video in which he swipes a credit card through his ho's butt. "Keepin' it real" means men are violent and nihilistic, women are "sluts, bobbing chicken heads, and of course bitches."

It is this glorification of violence and a complete dehumanization of women that represents the real legacy of gangster rap and one I think should be condemned . Most of today's rappers have the intellectual capacity of a crazed wasp in a jam jar. Infact, I believe they have more in common with stone age man than they do with me and I'm betting stone-age man was more enlightened. Some people probably see it as harmless or even funny. It is neither. Women being turned into nothing but sex objects with derogatory names is not funny. Talking about killing anyone who looks at you wrong-'the haters' being a particular catch-all phrase- is not funny either. It is stupid, uncivilized and at best shallow. Even Tupac who people potray as a hero was someone who met his death in the violent way he had always prophesised for his enemies- real or imagined. He might have made some good music, but in many ways he was no better than today's gangster rappers (and this is also the subject of another post) Allied to this violence and misogyny is another feature- the 'I am the best out there' lyrics. We get entire songs about how this particular rapper is the best out there and how incredibly he rhymes and how much bling he has. It's a shallow and utterly stupid celebration of braggadocio, tasteless consumerism and ultimately lack of any proper functioning brain activity.
The epitome of all this today is 50 cent- a man who has the nerve to call his album The massacre and has done more to set feminism- and indeed rationality as a whole- back at least another century. It would be bad enough if this was just music that was listened to by a few people, but this is the kind of music that is constantly top of the charts. 50 cent can't fart without going to number one and his musings like 'I'll put a hole in a nigga for fucking with me...Better watch how you talk, when you talk about me' cause I'll come and take your life away' become a kind of philosophical tract and a way of life for clueless young males all over the world. I was in a bar in Arusha sometime last year, and some soft rock was playing. A friend-of-a-friend shouted "Take off that faggoty-ass white music and put on some real gangster shit" Within the next few minutes the other guys were all rapping along enthusiastically to another sad case bragging about the size of his bling. I wasn't sure who was more pathetic.
Of course I don't even need to go into gangster rap videos- that would mean a post twice this long. Suffice to say, I feel only contempt for men who walk around with bling that looks like it weighs about fourty pounds while bragging before the camera about 'ho's' and guns.
Meanwhile those of us who like other kinds of 'black music'- and horror, even so-called 'white music'- are sissies or 'coconuts' (black on the outside, white on the inside) and worst of all, 'haters.' Indeed not since Rambo came along and became the idol of millions of mostly African kids have we seen such a dangerous role model. Rambo was at least fictional and the film was almost cartoonish in its glorification of vigilante violence. Gangster rap is unfortunately all too real.

Donuts, Paris Hilton, white uniforms and monkey vs monkey

About two weeks ago, I went to the Tribunal bakery downstairs to grab a bite to eat. Looking through the window I saw a familiar sight and the sign confirmed what I thought- donuts. mmm..donuts. Long time no see.
Anyway I bought one and went upstairs to eat it. As soon as I bit into it, I realized my mistake. Yes, this thing was being described as a donut, but believe me it was not a donut. My mistake was to think I was buying a proper donut, but I should have known better. It was just a tasteless thing of some kind. Talk about an anti-climax- I was slightly moodier for the rest of the day. So near and yet so far. I had stood on the edge and stared into the dark, hellish abyss that was a hoax donut. I did not like what I saw.
Which brings me to another scary event which happened to me recently. Two days ago I was watching a film late into the night (Straw dogs with Dustin Hoffman- bloody good, but that's the subject of another post) and midway through I did some quick idle channel surfing. In the course of this action, I stumbled onto MTV where an intriguing and catchy pop song was playing. I liked it instantly and hang around watching. Then a few seconds later I realized with horror who the singer was. It was Paris Hilton. I had just appreciated something Paris Hilton had done.
The implications of this were so staggering that I flicked back to my film with my mind numb. Where was I going to go from here? Paris Hilton! And yet try as I might, I could not deny that the song was really quite good for a pop song.. For a few seconds at least we had been on the same wavelength and that was a scary thing to ponder. How could this possibly have happened? An inquest is already underway.
And Paris Hilton releasing a good single is not the only thing that defies logic. Here in Arusha, I have always been intrigued by the fact that traffic policemen wear white uniforms and I mean all-white. What is the point? They'll be brown in a matter of minutes. This is Africa- a tornado of dust is never more than a few seconds away. Standing in the middle of traffic wearing an all-white outfit makes no sense at all.
Infact it makes as little sense as what is happening in New Delhi right now. Delhi has a major monkey problem but because they are considered sacred, no one is going to grab a gun and shoot them. The result is that the monkeys are free to roam with impunity and just do their thing. Monkeys have even broken into the Ministry of defence and ripped up confidential documents- I'm not making this up. Anyway some companies have decided to stop monkeying around and have developed a solution- bring in bigger monkeys. The langur monkey is apparently one bad-ass monkey scary to other monkeys and humans alike so they are now being deployed to sit infront of buildings to scare off any monkey intruders. Yes, fight monkeys with more monkeys. What could possibly go wrong?

Reflections on the Military II case

And now we rise
and we are everywhere
Nick Drake

The case I was attached to is often refered to as Military II and contains two of the biggest genocide suspects the Tribunal has nabbed so far- Augustin Bizimungu (who was chief of staff of the Rwandan army during the genocide) and Augistin Ndindiyilimana (who was head of the Gendarmes) plus Francois Nzuwonemeye and Innocent Sagahutu who were also high-ranking military officers.
The most astonishing thing about this case is how enthusiastically the defence is completely bungling up their case. Some of the incompetence on show over the last few weeks has been a marvel to behold. More specifically, it is the incompetence of Bizimungu's lawyer Giles Saint Laurent which has been the freak show on display. Allison Des Forges- an expert on Rwanda and employee of Human Rights Watch- has been testifying over the last four weeks or so and she completely destroyed him. Infact, it was so devastating that even the Prosecution team were cringing and looking for a table to hide under. Granted I'm just an intern straight out of University, but even I could see that the whole thing was messed up. Infact it became a running joke among us that we should give him an office on our floor because he was actually on our side. The most dramatic moment came when the Prosecution lawyer Segun Jegede called Ndindiliyimana's lawyer Christopher Black 'dishonest.' Black lost his temper and said-and I quote- "If you call me dishonest one more time, I am going to come over there and do something to you" Welcome to the United nations- dealing with conflict since 1945. Suprisingly the judge didn't call him on this. You would think that a lawyer threatening to beat up his opponent in court would at least get a mild scolding.
It is a bit chilling to sit in the Courtroom and see Bizimungu right across on the other side. You get to thinking that this is a guy who was determined to wipe out everyone like you from the earth and he is only within a stone's throw of you. I'm glad to see that he always looks miserable. How the man who was chief of staff of the army is going to prove his innocence during the genocide is going to be interesting especially seeing his lawyer is like Lionel Hertz from The Simpsons. It gives me great satisfaction to know that one of the masterminds of the genocide is sitting before a Court of law squirming uncomfortably and knowing that he failed to wipe us all out.
Still we rise. And we are everywhere.

"Words, they mean nothing..."

The sign said 'Assumption school' but that wasn't what caught my attention. I was much more interested in its intriguing motto. As we zoomed past, I had to turn my head to make sure I had read correctly.
The school's motto was 'The higher we climb'.
Interesting. Perhaps the sentiment embodied in that motto was so powerful that the owners of the school did not even need to complete the sentence. Still, it was a real cliffhanger. What exactly happened as they climbed higher? Was it a profound philosophical statement that puzzled passers-by were required to think about once they passed by the sign?
It reminded me of something I saw in a parking lot in Kampala although this one could not possibly have had any philosophical pretentions. It was on the side of a small van and it said THE LORD IS MY SHEPERD, I SHALL NOT WANT FOR NO NOTHING. How I laughed(I wanted to take a picture of it but Ezra warned me that he might not have my back when the owner discovered me doing so)
Arusha can be an interesting place and I often amuse myself by spotting things like this. For example there is a bus I see regularily in town with LISA LOOPS written at the back. It is sweet of them to remember Lisa 'left eye' (RIP) but surely in honouring her memory, they could have taken the effort to spell her name correctly?
In somewhat unrelated news, you are unlikely to be bored if you keep up with news from Nigeria because now and again a gem of a story comes to you. One such story came my way last week. Apparently the Nigerian government provides 'corruption free certificates' to politicians and leading officials so of course these are much sought after. Some find these a bit hard to come by so apparently a few officials managed to get their hands on black market certificiates- yes, it turns out you can actually buy a certificate telling everyone you are corruption-free probably from some hooded guy in a dark alley after midnight. Not suprisingly however, these guys had been scammed- the certificates were fake. Life is so often stranger than fiction...
And while we are still on the subject of Nigeria, I was wandering through a DVD rental store in Kigali and came across the Nigerian film section. One title caught my eye- or to be precise two titles. There was a film called 'Emergency wedding 1' and next to it was its sequel 'emergency wedding 2'. My curiousity was aroused- what exactly is an emergency wedding? And if it went so badly the first time, what cinematic genius is contained in its sequel? Surely they would have learned their lesson from the first emergency wedding?
Sometimes I watch the Nigerian films on the Africamagic channel (and although I am about to diss them, I do admire the fact they are putting these films out and actually trying). I can usually only watch them in bits and pieces so as not to fry my brain, but they can be unintentionally funny. On Saturday I wandered in while my mum was watching a thriller. There was an evil looking man pointing a gun at another guy in a toilet and the other guy was begging for his life. The gunman ignored him and shot him dead. Then he threw back his head and gave the worst evil laugh I have ever heard. He looked down at the dead man and then did the same laugh again. It was not the greatest moment in Nigerian cinema.

30 greatest books ever written

I wrote a '20 greatest books ever written' article for the paper a few days ago so I thought I'd reproduce it here but instead make it 30 seeing as there were so many good books I couldnt put in the top 20. Of course I dont need to add that this is my personal opinion so as always with these kinds of things, we are not going to agree. Here are my top 30 in order:

1. 1984: George Orwell
2. Catch 22: Joseph Heller
3. Don Quixote: Miguel de Cervantes
4. Hitch-hikers guide to the Galaxy: Douglas Adams
5. Secret Garden: Francis Hodgson Burnett
6. A Scanner Darkly: Phillip.K. Dick
7. Animal Farm: George Orwell
8. Exodus: Leon Uris
9. The Trial: Franz Kafka
10. Things fall apart: Chinua Achebe
11. Poisonwood bible: Barbara Kingsolver
12.Fear and loathing in Las Vegas: Hunter.S. Thompson
13. Secret History: Donna Tartt
14. Lord of the flies: William Golding
15. Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison
16. Lord of the Rings: J.R.R Tolkien
17. Fight Club: Chuck Pahlaniuk
18. Power of one: Bryce Courtenay
19. Crime and Punishment: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
20. Misery: Stephen King
21. Three stigmata of palmer Eldtritch: Philip. K. Dick
22. Sirens of titan: Kurt Vonnegut
23. Ubik: Philip. K. Dick
24. Travels of Jamie Mcpheeters: Robert Lewis Taylor
25. Gulliver's Travels: Jonathan Swift
26. The gods themselves: Isaac Asimov
27. The silence of the lambs: Thomas harris
28. Song of Solomon: Toni Morrison
29. Notes from the underground: Fyodor Dostoyevsky
30.Brave new world: Aldous Huxley

The life of mammals

One thing I noticed about Arusha is that nearly everything is called 'Kilimanjaro'. The mountain has such an influence on this town that everything that can possibly be named 'Kilimanjaro' will infact take on that name. It brings to mind a certain episode of Dexter's laboratory- yes, the cartoon- when he devises a machine to help him study for French. He attaches it to his ears and goes to sleep having fed the machine many phrases that it will beam into his brain while he is asleep. However the machine malfunctions so that the entire night it says only a single nonsensical phrase about eggs and cheese. When he gets to school, he cant say anything except that phrase no matter what question he is asked or what idea he is trying to get across. Indeed he can't even say a single word of English anymore. This is the nightmarish dystopian future I can see for Arusha if we continue down this road( although it turned out better for Dexter)- a future in which everything is called 'Kilimajaro' and people have the following conversation.
'Kilimanaro?'
'Kilimanaro!'
'Kilimanjaro, Kilimanjaro....Kilimanjaro?'
I was thinking of this while sitting in my dad's car outside a Supermarket called 'Mr price'. Outside the supermarket is the following quote

We can't do great things in this world
But we can do small things with Great love
By Mr Price

For some reason that thing just tickled me. Maybe it was the 'By Mr price' thing at the end, I don't know. It is nice to know that even the man who supplies your bread is dabbling in philosophy.
But anyway the internship- it's okay really. The end of my first week found me by the hallway printer photocopying and trying to put some binders together. I was supposed to create five new identical binders- it was not work calculated to bring much joy.
Thankfully Anne-Cecile- another intern who was assigned to the same case as I was- came by and offered to help.
"Thanks thats a big help" I told her "It's nice of you"
" Well we are a team" She answered. And I suddenly realized she was right- we were a team. I suddenly had visions of Vietnam and an American soldier dragging his injured friend along with him. " I'm not leaving without you Mike!"
But we were not standing in the killing fields of Vietnam. We were standing by the side of the largest photocopying machine I had ever seen. A photocopier so powerful it appeared to be capable of sentient life.
There are about ten other interns in the same office I am in. How they managed to fit us all in is what I can only call a marvel of logistics. When they were moving us all in, we did not think it was possible. I was sure we would be- in Radiohead's words- 'pack't like sardines in a crushed tin box'. However it did work and thankfully we all get along. Well we pretty much have to being so physically close to each other.
And any place with a two-hour lunch break also gets my vote.
My laugh of the week (well last week anyway) came from Pakistan's PM Pervez Musharaff who claimed that a US official had threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if they didn't coperate in the war against terror right after 9/11. He was asked how he felt.
"I thought it was very rude" He answered.
Rude? What an understatement. 'Rude' would have been if Bush had walked into his office and given him a wave instead of shaking his hand. Threatening to destroy his entire country is probably a little more than just 'rude'.