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The Emperor's New Clothes
By Jeffrey the Barak
Published September 2005

Picture this, A Millionaire Rap star gets on stage at the Grammies to receive his golden accolade from the middle-class music-buying public, and a little boy jumps up and exclaims, "He's naked".

Of course there is no little boy in this version of The Emperor's New Clothes, but there should be.

American Jazz of the 20th century was as brilliant as classical music, and its musicians, educated or not, were supremely intelligent superhuman heroes, excelling against the tide of a society that really wanted them slaving in the fields.

Now the grandchildren of the emancipated are hanging out like wild animals, calling each other "Nigger" and basically removing the niche for white American racists, They are their own racists.

They celebrate crime, murder, theft, drug-dealing, extortion, bullying, peer pressure, blackmail, rape, and violent exploitation with their art form, Rap.

The drummers are machines, the musical backing is a computer generated sequence, and the vocals are a non-musical celebration of all of the above crimes and more. The more horrible these artists are, the more the people imagine they respect them.

The children need to spend less time worrying about how macho and tough and nasty they are perceived to be, and more time smiling and enjoying life in a friendly way. They need to open a dictionary and find out the real meanings of words such as respect and disrespect. It's not the same as the popular gangster or Rap definition.

There are more choices for life than gang, church or army, with the only way out being a successful Rap album. If we don't buy their music and we don't play their music, it will go away. Perhaps it will take some things with it, like murder, rape, extortion etc.

Perhaps the old folks might even get to hear the youngsters talking without the N word again. They worked so hard to make it an offense, but it came back with gangs and Rap, the soundtrack of the gangs.

Where is the little boy? Someone needs to pull the plug on this art form that perpetuates the worst form of life in our varied society. "He's naked."

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