Though I've never believed in the meritocratic ideal of the American dream, it's painful to consider that success is now being brokered and articulated not in terms of work or sacrifice but in terms of one's ability to simply maintain life.
Well, that, or as 50 Cent so captivatingly expresses, to endorse the type of activity — drugs, prostitution, murder — that robs others of it.
As we continued this year, the multiple millions of us who shelled out the requisite $11.95 found ourselves absolutely Dangerously in Love.
The elusive emotion didn't only plague Beyoncé, it got us all. If we allowed the Billboard charts to speak for us, the pursuit of love spread us in multiple expressive directions from playin' to pimpin' to indulging in all that Kelis deemed as Tasty, we found ourselves in a rather unhealthy cycle of objectifying sex and calling it love, and commercializing love while calling it sex.
OutKast's Andre 3000 took us on a search to reclaim The Love Below, and in many ways the search intensified to the point that it took a return from some of love's greatest advocates to show us the musical way. Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Earth, Wind & Fire, Gerald Levert and the Isley Brothers all stepped back into the limelight of 2003.
Each time I discuss the trends I see underneath the music, folks are always quick to tell me,"Cornelius, it's just entertainment, brother."
If it is just entertainment that which we consume as a diversion then, we chose with our dollars to consume and exemplify violence, excess, and sex as an escape from what? War? Widening inequality Economic instability? Very likely.
What if the music we choose is not a reflection of our collective condition, but the exact opposite? What if we, inversely, are the music that we consume: clones, as the Neptunes reminded us with song after manufactured space-age song?
By blindly accepting the excessive lifestyles that the industry pitches to us, are we not then complicating the very issues that we were seeking to escape in the first place?
change, Cornelius? Who's going to be hot?"
Back in November people were already asking me about my predictions for 2004. "What's going to
Here I sit mid-January, still somewhat unable and a bit afraid to tell because, though we witnessed some groundbreaking talent in the '03, if what was hot last year continues to be hot for '04, then, sadly, nothing will change.
In our short lifetimes we've already witnessed the abandonment of the pop musical standard "pretty girl" for contemporary "hoez." Lyrical innovation has become covert marketing, and the desire for skill has become a lust for riches. Progressive groups play to half-filled venues and struggle to move product. Again, if current trends continue, then I'm afraid for the musical experience that lies in the 12 months ahead of us.
How then do we begin to change trends? I'm going to speculate that whatever does change has to begin not on the radio or at the record store but with us.
Whether these artists speak for us or we live our lives according to the realities that they dictate, one thing is certain: The industry-manufactured culture that we consume impacts us in ways that affect our living. To reverse these trends, we must live in ways that affect how the industry manufactures culture—that means supporting artists who stand for something. It means supporting local talent. It means demanding quality not catchy beats and slick marketing, but honesty, integrity and respect.
As we move into a new year of musical creativity and expression, we cannot begin to expect more of the industry unless we can first start expecting more of ourselves.
If all we hear is what others want us to hear, what becomes of what we think, what we feel and what we do? Are we to allow industry to control that as well?
— Cornelius Minor hosts "Voice Activated," Thursdays from 7 p.m. to 8 p.m., on KJHK 90.7.