In the past few years, I’ve heard several references, both on the SDMB and elsewhere, to lyrics in rap music that advocate … well, killing white people.
Sure, I’ve heard rap that talks about killing cops, but is there really anything out there with lyrics that are the equivalent of “kill white people” or “get the man” or whatever?
A Kazaa search only turned up a song by Wesley Willis, which is hardly rap.
AH! I was just thinking about asking the same thing. Sounds like just another one of those racist UL fantasies.
Some of the more violently political rap does indeed get caught up in its anti-“the man” rhetoric, basically saying “kill whitey” indirectly. I’m thinking of groups like the Coup, and especially Dead Prez.
Well, there’s the legendary “I’m gonna get me a shotgun and kill all the whities I see” song performed by Garrett Morris on “Saturday Night Live,” but that was just plain silliness.
Another SNL skit was Eddie Murphy as a Reggae musician performing “Kill all the White People” at a VFW Hall.
What about Kill, Kill, Kill tha White man by Mama Lookaboobooday in Private parts?
I got it
Last Poets. http://www.math.buffalo.edu/~sww/LAST-POETS/last_poets0.html
Most of what’s been said is a gross oversimplication of the Poets message, especially in the spoofs cited above. But they were influential proto-rappers and this seems to fit the Angry Black Revolutionary/Kill Whitey image they’ve cultivated.
To a lesser extent this is true of Gil-Scott Heron.
People try to stretch the Last Poets to be “the first rap group,” but I don’t buy it. They’re just rhythmic poetry with some conga and djembe-pounding.
Some of their stuff is great, though - “whitey on the moon.”
What’s the strentch? Spken words, over a muscial beat, to an interactive audience, evoking provacative social imagery. They call themselves poets but the basis for a lot of rap is there, including hooks, call-and-response, and The Angry Voice Of Disenfranchised Blackness. A loooOooot of political rappers cite the Poets influence. Chuck D, Arrested Development, Tupac Shakur, X-Clan, Sister Souljah – and this is just off the top of my head, mind – would all disagree with you.
Oh, and I’m pretty sure Whitey’s On The Moon is Gil Scott Heron.