Tales From ‘Hood Need to Be Told

The world needs the gritty realism found in the lyrics of slain “ghetto messenger” Tupac Shakur, early Ice Cube (“AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted”) and others who are not afraid to speak out about controversial issues (“All Eyes on Shakur’s ‘Don Killumaninati,’ ” Calendar, Nov. 14; “Rap Music’s Real Roots Are in the Best Tradition of Protest,” Calendar, Nov. 12).

Similarly, blacks--and whites--need more “gangsta/’hood” movies--more “Boyz N the Hood,” more “Menace II Society,” more “Strapped.” (I’m not talking about “wannabes” like “South Central” or “Zebrahead,” films that clearly were produced by those who thought they had a grasp of “gangsta” culture.)

Inner-city culture and life (and death) must be examined in a realistic manner, which makes it all the more frustrating when a black woman like C. DeLores Tucker (chair of the Washington-based National Political Congress of Black Women and leader of an anti-rap campaign) lambastes African American filmmakers and rap artists, many of whom do have relevant messages from the ‘hood.

Just two years before the 1992 riots in Los Angeles, popular Oakland rapper Too Short rapped in his gripping song “The Ghetto”: “So if you don’t listen, it’s not my fault . . . you’ll be the one paying the cost. . . .” No one listened. So-called gangsta rapper Ice-T, when asked his feelings about the riots as he watched them live on the news, paused for a second, then began to cite his early albums, song by song, in which he addressed specific volatile situations in Compton, Watts and South-Central. Did anyone pay attention?

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As with the years prior to the riots, most people who heard Ice-T that night probably honed in on the alleged “racist-violent-sexist” bent of his work rather than hearing what was really behind songs like “Peel Their Caps Back” (“But of this [entire] drama, you’ll neva’ hear a word [of]/’cuz all the [news]paper’s gonna read is: ‘Gang murder!’ ”), “6 ‘n the Mornin’ ” and the haunting classics “Squeeze the Trigger” and “Pain.” Again, few listened.

So-called concerned blacks like Tucker and Robert Williams, the co-executive producer of the well-received HBO film “Tuskegee Airmen,” do nothing to improve the conditions of real-life blacks when they discredit talented young ghetto messengers trying to “give up the real” about relevant ‘hood-related themes; Williams refers to such “ghetto tales” as “tragic and intellectually bankrupt stereotypes of African American people” (Calendar, Jan. 29). What is served by chastising the messengers (the Hughes Brothers, Tupac, etc.) other than to have the effect of stymieing discussions about controversial black social issues and, perhaps, their solutions?

Instead of discrediting the messenger, a dialogue with Tupac regarding his message might have been better.

Yeah, you could’ve asked Tupac. ‘Cept now it’s too late.