Re: FW: RUN-DMC?

[Kame'a Media <media...>]

Thank you, Reyzl, for your most thorough and  informative post.

While I, too abhor and condemn the anti-Semitic and misogynistic lyrics found
in some rap, (and I don't for a minute buy into PE's b-s rationale)  it is
important to remember, in the words of Austin singer-songwriter Ray Wylie
Hubbard:

"(The late) Bill Monroe has killed more people, in music, than Ice-T".

Lyrics such as those found in "Swindler's Lust", while they do address an ugly
truth of the record business, I believe are shrewdly recorded for their
inflammatory and shock value, to generate publicity and sales.  Unfortunately,
they succeed all to often.

At the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,when a Black artist is inducted into the
Hall, he is often impoverished in his old age while the Jewish businessman who
sold his records (and often attached his name to the artist's original
compositions) stands laughing in the wings,  fat and <ungeshtopt> due to
financial gains engendered by unethical, exploitative contracts and other
miscellaneous chicanery.

That's a fact.  While the rage of  PE is justified, from where they stand as
Black performers, it is terribly divisive, destructive and self-defeating.

Wolf

Reyzl Kalifowicz-Waletzky wrote:

> Dear Roni Sarig,
>
> >Lyor Cohen is the head of Def Jam, one of the earliest and most
> influential
> >rap record labels. The label was once independent, and released the early
> >albums of Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and many others, including the (Jewish)
> >Beastie Boys. Cohen is not the manager of any of these groups. Now that
> Def
> >Jam is owned by Universal Music Group (Bronfman's company), Cohen serves
> an
> >executive in the larger corporation, and continues to play an important
> role
> >in the release of rap albums.
>
> You many know "more than a little" about rap music next to the _little_
> knowledge I know about rap music, but that doesn't mean that you know
> enough to say what you say.   A history of "writing" about hip-hop music,
> whatever that means, doesn't necessarily mean that the writer is truly
> knowledgeable about hip-hop music, myself included here.   I don't know why
> your opinions should be taken at face value over what the Jewish Week has
> reported about the role of Jewish leaders in this industry.   From some of
> the naive comments you have made below, I wouldn't assess that your
> knowledge about this industry is superficial, even though you may be very
> familiar with the rap repertoire (while I, on the other hand, have made
> sure to forget anything I heard.)  Newspapers make mistakes ALL THE TIME,
> but this was a lengthy front page article in highly awarded paper and front
> page articles get a lot of care in newspapers.   As a regular reader for
> the last 17 years of Jewish Week and (several other Jewish newspapers - I
> think I read about 6 a week), I have high confidence in just about
> everything I read in the Jewish Week, unlike some other Jewish weeklies.
>  The Jewish Week is a major information source for the whole American press
> and I can't remember when facts in it were successfully challenged.  You
> have expressed enough inaccuracies and naivete here for me not to accept
> anything you have written below.
>
> I can't access the article now, so I can't quote from it directly, but I
> will say the following.
> I think I made it pretty clear that in April, Cohen sold his Def Jam
> company to Bronfman's company.   It was his company until that point and he
> has now joined Bronfman's.   According to the Jewish Week, he was Public
> Enemy's manager and in fact made one of the main guys (Russel Simmons) a
> partner.   Since there was a quote from Simmons there to that effect, I
> don't know why you think you know better.   Cohen released only the first
> albums of PE?!?!?!?  I don't know how you write that, but I am not going to
> the web page to check it, but maybe you should.
>
> >Cohen is by no means the main force behind hip-hop music. He is an
> important
> >record executive, but has no role in writing rap lyrics and is not even
> >primarily responsible for rap's marketing success (I'd credit that to many
> >people and, in large part, to the fact that kids like it).
>
> This is simply your opinion.  If the role of writing lyrics is so
> important, I would really like to know when and where have we had a
> lyricist, any lyricist whose contribution was limited to lyrics, succeed in
> becoming a main force in any part of the American music industry?   Since
> when is writing lyrics the measuring stick in assessing power in a music
> business?    We are talking about business and not emotional influence
> here, of let's say a Leonard Cohen or a Dylan, but then of course, they
> didn't become this rich from just writing lyrics to important songs that
> other people recorded.   They became a force in the industry once they
> recorded their own songs themselves, which is a whole different musical
> function.   You make rap music sound here as if we are talking about
> geniuses of the likes of Cole Porter, Ira Gershwin, Larry Hart or Sir
> Gilbert.  There aren't any in rap - with or without industry power.
>
> If the credit goes to others, when and where has highly shrewd Master
> Bronfman Jr. or any other equivalent industry powerhouse offered anyone
> $150+ million dollars for their business?   What other rap label or great
> record producer did he buy out or bring into Polygram?  If Def Jam is only
> a middle size, albeit "important" record company, how does is it that
> Polygram can reach control of 25% percent of the whole music market with
> the mere acquisition of this company?
>
> >I'd credit that to many people and, in large part, to the fact that kids
> like it.
>
> And how did suburban mall kids who know nothing about living in ghettos and
> crude daily violence get to like this low-level music?  Yes, of course they
> just "naturally" liked it.   Sorry this too naive for a response.
> >to say "most" is frighteningly inaccurate. there are thousands of rap
> songs
> >released each year, and the vast majority have nothing to do with Jews or
> >anything political or racial. Most are about having fun, or about
> love/sex,
> >just like any pop songs. there is, of course, a relatively large portion
> of
> >songs that address ghetto life and violence. some of it is worthy of being
> >condemned, and a lot of it is at least exploitative, but most of it simply
> >involves young people talking about, for better or worse, what they see.
>
> Well, that's your opinion and I bet you are young, childless and feel
> little responsibility for kids' moral values.   The "thousands" of rap
> songs that come out today are mostly derivative.   Mr. Cohen produced and
> marketed the first important ones, the ones that set the tone, pattern,
> content and attitude of the whole genre.   As for the love/sex obsession, I
> think they are stupid, disgusting, and highly destructive to the all kids,
> but especially black kids.   I am angry when I see pre-adolescent kids,
> black or white, singing those inappropriate songs with their inappropriate
> focus.  Young adolescents and teens (5-15) are the ones who buy those
> records and the whole genre is inappropriate for them.   Furthermore, just
> because "some" of the "total" number of produced records are innocuous,
> doesn't mean that this genre is innocuous for it's target audience.   Just
> because lots of kids watch those violent cartoons, doesn't mean that they
> are good for them or that we should sit for their being shown to children,
> and, indeed, people haven't.   Millions of parents, health professionals
> and communal leaders have continuously condemned this music from the very
> start, so I don't think that this is just a matter of my own personal
> "prejudiced" or "paranoid" opinion.   We have all felt this way before and
> after Littleton.   Second, other companies and producers may have come
> after Cohen, but he was the first and the most important one and he made
> this stuff a markettable musical genre according to my information.   If
> none of the above would be true and if Cohen would not be a master at this,
> Bronfman wouldn't have asked him to stay with the label.   You have to know
> a little about corporate business to understand that and I do read trade
> papers.
>
> >At the time, I never came across any instance of Cohen
> >"staunchly defending" the group (and I read quite a bit about it), though
> it
> >wouldn't suprise me given that he's a businessman interested in protecting
> >his business.
>
> Sorry, you don't know what you are talking about.   I don't know what you
> were reading at the time or since, but I myself remember how much heated
> verbiage was spilled on TV, radio, and newspapers at the time on their
> anti-Semitic remarks, because no one could understand how the record
> company (=Cohen) was staunchly defending PE.   Furthermore, the article not
> only writes about that very strong defense, but both Cohen and Simmons are
> quoted there on the importance of Cohen's strong defense of PE at the time.
>   Since I live 13 blocks from 770 Eastern Parkway, I was closely observing
> such issues after the Crown Heights pogrom (1991).   But, what I didn't
> know at the time was that the owner was not only a Jew, but an Israeli.
>
> >As for Cohen (and Bronfman and others), I agree that they bear a
> >responsibility for what they put out, and don't always live up to it. But
> we
> >must not overstate the issue of anti-Semitism in rap, and we certainly
> should
> >not rely on Jewish Week for our information about the music.
>
> I gave a list in my writing of what is troublesome in rap music and it
> isn't limited to anti-Semitism.   I have no idea how many instances of
> anti-Semitic lyrics there are in rap music, but I don't believe that you
> know either.   Second, when you write that PE did it again just last year,
> it's obvious that they haven't learned anything from nearly a decade of
> discussion.  Quantity isn't always the critical issue in these kinds of
> things as much as the quality, i.e., the power of the person(s) making a
> remark.   A hundred rappers in Harlem recording heavy anti-Semitic or
> misogynistic remarks is still not equal to a Public Enemy or a Michael
> Jackson making one tenth the strength of a similar comment.
>
> You must be very young, you must come from the suburbs and like this music.
>   I live not that far from Bedford Stuyvesant and very glad that my teenage
> kids don't listen much to this music anymore...
>
> Reyzl
>
> ----------
> From:  Rmsarig (at) aol(dot)com[SMTP:Rmsarig (at) aol(dot)com]
> Sent:  Sunday, July 11, 1999 6:09 PM
> To:  World music from a Jewish slant
> Subject:  Re: FW: RUN-DMC?
>
> As someone very interested in Jewish culture and popular culture, and who
> writes about pop music (very often hip-hop), I think I should lend some
> perspective to this thread. I think I may one of the few people on the list
> who knows more than a little about rap, so...
>
> >  I also recently read that a former Israeli, observant
> >  Jew has managed Public Enemy all these years...
>
> Lyor Cohen is the head of Def Jam, one of the earliest and most influential
> rap record labels. The label was once independent, and released the early
> albums of Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and many others, including the (Jewish)
> Beastie Boys. Cohen is not the manager of any of these groups. Now that Def
> Jam is owned by Universal Music Group (Bronfman's company), Cohen serves an
> executive in the larger corporation, and continues to play an important
> role
> in the release of rap albums.
>
> >  The man who is the main force behind the business and success of Rap
> >  and Hip hop music, including Rap's violence, misogyny, anti-Semitism
> >  (Public Enemy) is Lyor Cohen, born to Israeli observant Moroccan
> >  parents in America, and the great grandson of Israeli Rabbi Daniel
> >  Sirkus, a signer of Israel's Delaration of Independence.  You can read
>
> Cohen is by no means the main force behind hip-hop music. He is an
> important
> record executive, but has no role in writing rap lyrics and is not even
> primarily responsible for rap's marketing success (I'd credit that to many
> people and, in large part, to the fact that kids like it).
>
> >  about all this in the April 23, 1999 front page article of Jewish Week.
> >  He was/is the agent for Run-DMC, Def Jam, Public Enemy, and a whole
> >  slew of others.   He is seen as the one "who helped rap and hip-hop
> >  cross over from urban America to become the dominant musical taste of
> >  the white suburbs, in whose shopping malls 65 percent of all rap
> >  records are bought.
>
> Again, many record executives helped usher rap along to become popular with
> white kids, but it became popular because kids like it.
>
> >  Why did I raise this issue?  Most rap lyrics have been condemned as
> >  glamorizing ghetto life, inciteful speech and lyrics that the
> >  Anti-Defamation League called "toxic" in its 1992 special Report on
> >  Hateful Lyrics in Rap and Rock.  The article says "The report
>
> to say "most" is frighteningly inaccurate. there are thousands of rap songs
> released each year, and the vast majority have nothing to do with Jews or
> anything political or racial. Most are about having fun, or about love/sex,
> just like any pop songs. there is, of course, a relatively large portion of
> songs that address ghetto life and violence. some of it is worthy of being
> condemned, and a lot of it is at least exploitative, but most of it simply
> involves young people talking about, for better or worse, what they see.
>
> >  specifically targeted Public Enemy, a group signed to Def Jam
> >  Records, and whose members were devotees of Louis Farrakhan."
> >  Cohen staunchly defended Public Enemy when their songs rapped about
> >  Jews crucifying blacks and made comparisons to Jesus a few years
>
> There have been less than a handful of times where blatant anti-Semitism
> has
> appeared in a recorded rap song (there is a larger issue of anti-Semitism
> in
> the black community, just as there is an issue about racism in the Jewish
> community, and some rappers have been known to express anti-Jewish thoughts
> off the record). P.E. has perpretrated a most noxious kind of anti-Semitism
> on two occasions. Noxious, because the group is largely seen (otherwise
> deservingly) as offering among the most intelligent and well-written
> discussion of the problems and issues facing the black community. While
> their
> credibility in this area is ruined for me by their occasional
> anti-Semitism,
> for those who don't know better, unfortunately, their general credibility
> lends a degree of credibility to their anti-Semitism. The first case of
> P.E.'s anti-Semitic lyrics came in the early '90s, when the group recorded
> for Def Jam. At the time, I never came across any instance of Cohen
> "staunchly defending" the group (and I read quite a bit about it), though
> it
> wouldn't suprise me given that he's a businessman interested in protecting
> his business. I do recall, however, that Def Jam's publicist, Bill Adler
> (who
> continues to work in the rap world), wrote a book-length refutation of an
> outrageously anti-Semitic Nation of Islam publication (The Secret
> Relationship Between Blacks and Jews) after rapper Ice Cube cited the NOI
> book as "worth checking out"
> P.E.'s second instance of anti-Semitism came this year, on a song not
> released by Def Jam (but rather by Atomic Pop, an Internet music company
> run
> by Al Teller -- just what? -- a Jew).
> As for Cohen (and Bronfman and others), I agree that they bear a
> responsibility for what they put out, and don't always live up to it. But
> we
> must not overstate the issue of anti-Semitism in rap, and we certainly
> should
> not rely on Jewish Week for our information about the music.
> -Roni Sarig
>



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