"Nigger"

Yea...throwing around the word today. As I said, I have minimal problem with the word, because I haven't had much to complain about. If I were to fake the hurt, it'd take the power away from someone who actually does feel the pain on a regular basis.

Anyway...

A few months ago, Nas released a track called "Be a Nigger Too," and honestly, had it been anybody else in the game, I wouldn't have given it thought. But Nas has been a thought-provoker for me since I started listening to him. I actually liked the song so much that I flexed my writing muscles and wrote a quick verse to it. Not even the beat; the song.

Why? Because even if he's not saying what I agree with in the end, he's also not being stupid. He's thinking.

And the thing about it is, you know this is deep because you can't deconstruct it and make sense of it all in the 3+ minutes it takes to listen to the song once. But there is sense in it.

I won't deconstruct it all here for you, because I'm simply not gonna be able to put it all down here, and I don't know if y'all have time to read it. Plus, that wasn't the point of this entry.

The point of this entry is to address the album that released yesterday.

In a single from the album, Hero, Nas basically lets all the listeners know that because of his lawyers and his record label, he will not be allowed to call the album Nigger.

So he just won't name the album.

"This universal apartheid
I'm hog-tied, the corporate side
Blocking y'all from going to stores and buying it
First L.A. and Doug Morris was riding wit it
But Newsweek article startled big wigs
They said, Nas, why is he trying it?
My lawyers only see the Billboard charts as winning
Forgetting - Nas the only true rebel since the beginning
Still in musical prison, in jail for the flow
Try telling Bob Dylan, Bruce, or Billy Joel
They can't sing what's in their soul
So untitled it is
I never change nothin'
But people remember this
If Nas can't say it, think about these talented kids
With new ideas being told what they can and can't spit
I can't sit and watch it
So, sh!t, I'ma drop it
Like it or not
You ain't gotta cop it
I'm a hustler in the studio
Cups of Don Julio
No matter what the CD called
I'm unbeatable, y'all"
--"Hero," Nasir Jones, Untitled 2008.

On behalf of the real artists out there who have something to say, but have to watch how they say it for fear of offending the people who need to be offended,

On behalf of every preacher who's had to preach to a silent house because people didn't want to confront the truth of their words,

On behalf of every health educator who's been ordered not to tell people--who are going to have sex anyway--to at least strap on a condom for your health's sake,

On behalf of any caged bird who's found the courage to sing through the bars of society,

Thank you for saying it anyway.