Common
While I’m on the music theme, there was a very interesting profile yesterday on NPR of socially conscious hip-hop artist, Common (fka Common Sense). It included a discussion of his 1997 song on (among other things) abortion, Retrospect for Life. Here are a few of the lyrics:
Yo, we gotta start respecting life more ya’ll
You look at your brother, man, you gotta see yourself
Gotta see the god within him
Brothers getting changed real quick over nothing
We losing too many of ours
Gotta recreate ya’ll
Yo check it
Knowing you the best part of life do I have the right to take yours
Cause I created you irresponsibly
Subconsiously knowing the act I was a part of
The start of something, I’m not ready to bring into the world
Had myself believing I was sterile
Look into your mother’s stomach wonder if you a boy or girl
Turning this woman’s womb into a tomb
But she and I agree– a seed we don’t need
You would’ve been much more than a mouth to feed
But someone, I would’ve fed this information I read,
To someone, my life for you I would’ve had to leave
Instead I lead you to death
I’m sorry for taking your first breath, first step and first cry
But I wasn’t prepared mentally nor financially
Having a child shouldn’t have to bring out the man in me
Plus I wanted you to be raised within a family
I don’t wanna go through the drama of having a baby’s momma
Weekend visits and buying J’s ain’t gonna make me a father
For a while bearing a child was something I never wanted to do
For me to live forever I can only do that through you
Nerve I got to talk about them niggaz with a gun
Must’ve really thought I was god to take the life of my son
I could’ve sacrificed going out
To think, my homies who did it I used to joke about
From now on,
I’ma use self-control instead of birth control
Cause 315 dollars ain’t worth your soul
315 dollars ain’t worth your soul
315 dollars ain’t worth it
According to the NPR discussion, Common is out of fashion primarily because of the ascendancy of the “loop” mentality in hip-hop. Keep it simple and repetitive. (This is a frustration felt in liturgical music circles as well.)
Maybe he would do well to adapt. In Retrospect for Life, for instance, the long narrative of soul searching, while excellent, could be boiled down into
two layered refrains:
From now on I’ma use self-control instead of birth control
Cause 315 dollars ain’t worth your soul
I, never dreamed you’d leave in summer
You said you would be here when it rained
You said you would be here when it rained
Ohh I, never dreamed you’d leave in summer
Now the situation’s made things change
Things change
Why, didn’t you stay
Why didn’t you stay…
And two brief verses:
It’s so much in my life that’s undone
We gotta see eye to eye, about family, before we can become one
Though his death was at our greed, with no one else to blame
I had a book of Afrikan names, case our minds changed
***
I have the sense that a lot of creative thought is put into the sound (as distinct from the meaning) of the repetitive and often degrading refrains in hip hop. Some of them are quite catchy. I think “Cause 315 dollars ain’t worth your soul” has the freshness, precision, and sound qualities that would make a good hip-hop refrain.
A still more inconvenient truth is that at the end of the 19th century the planet held about 1 billion people; at the end of the 20th, about 6 billion.
I think we may be a bit overzealous with the illusion of living on through our children, as though our own particular genes, stem cells, etc, were more precious than, say, human life on earth.
PMM – originalfaith.com
In the long run, we can go as green as we want, but we can’t have as many babies as we want.
Over the words “Be fruitful and multiply” the human race could hang a banner reading “Mission Accomplished” and this time it would be true.
And a kind of inconvenient truth is that I posted my signature in the middle of that message but looks like I can’t edit!