Our beloved, North Carolina rapper J. Cole has been on the front lines raising awareness and speaking out about the injustices we’ve been seeing with police/citizen relations.
Cole was one of the first rappers to pack up and head down to Ferguson, Mo. to show solidarity with protesters after the fatal police shooting of unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The touching track includes audio from news reports with eye witness testimonies. You’ve got to have a coal for a heart if you don’t feel something. Cole makes the song cry in real life.
While we appreciate his passion and action– in fact, I respect it considering he’s at a fragile juncture in his career, I have some questions.
Obviously, he doesn’t care about fame or the money, and he seems to genuinely want to see change– by any means. In the documentary produced to support this recent release, he states: “I don’t want it … if I have to become someone who’s so out of touch with what’s real.”
Today, he releases his third studio album 2014 Forest Hills Drive. So far, it has been well received and I wouldn’t expect any less– especially after the lyrics to controversial song Fire Squad which takes shots at white artists who are heavily influenced by black culture.
Listen to the full stream of 2014 Forest Hills Drive:
But my question is, how come when rappers become politically aware they stop grooming themselves?
Is it the Dr. Cornel West Effect? Does an unkempt bush make one more convincing? Is freedom fighting so involved that one simply doesn’t have time to hop in the barber’s chair? Should it matter that one’s hair hasn’t been cut or combed?
In the grand scheme of things, of course not. Rappers are artists and should be judged by their work and nothing more. But I really want to know what that represents to them.
We watched Kanye slip into the dark side during 2009’s 808’s & Heartbreaks. Q-Tip’s hair is often been questionable, but most recently, during New York protests, we see him donning a crazy ‘fro.
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1 Comment
Jeremy T
Posted on December 9, 2014
Hair, other than skin color is probably the most easily identifiable display of a person’s ethnicity. If you think about, it everybody’s hair looks pretty much the same when cut short. Doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, asian etc it all looks similar. When you grow your hair out its another way to express your individuality. For black people, its even more apparent because our hair texture is very different from all other ethnic groups. To be completely honest, the reason why afros and other afrocentric styles are looked at as unkept or ungroomed is because it doesn’t fit into the status quo of the european standard of acceptable appearance thats been ingrained into people’s heads. If your hair isn’t long and straight and free flowing, then society says it needs to be cut short so that it doesn’t stand out. Its a way to supress who you are. Alot of times when people grow their hair out they are making a conscious effort to go against the norm. The reason why afros were popular in the 60s and 70s is because around that time, black people were more conscious as a whole. Our uniqueness was not only embraced, but it was celebrated.
Our beloved, North Carolina rapper J. Cole has been on the front lines raising awareness and speaking out about the injustices we’ve been seeing with police/citizen relations.
Jeremy T
Hair, other than skin color is probably the most easily identifiable display of a person’s ethnicity. If you think about, it everybody’s hair looks pretty much the same when cut short. Doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, asian etc it all looks similar. When you grow your hair out its another way to express your individuality. For black people, its even more apparent because our hair texture is very different from all other ethnic groups. To be completely honest, the reason why afros and other afrocentric styles are looked at as unkept or ungroomed is because it doesn’t fit into the status quo of the european standard of acceptable appearance thats been ingrained into people’s heads. If your hair isn’t long and straight and free flowing, then society says it needs to be cut short so that it doesn’t stand out. Its a way to supress who you are. Alot of times when people grow their hair out they are making a conscious effort to go against the norm. The reason why afros were popular in the 60s and 70s is because around that time, black people were more conscious as a whole. Our uniqueness was not only embraced, but it was celebrated.