Dear Nas,

I owe you an apology. Arguably you’re one of the best rappers ever and I’m a fan of your art. However, when I first heard that you intended to name your last album NIGGER, I was completely outraged. As if you had called me one to my face. Unwanted emotions were provoked inside of me when I just thought about approaching the counter of the music outlet that I patronize and asking to purchase the cd titled NIGGER. I thought about the preconceived stares that I would receive by other patrons as I waited in line to make my purchase. I was angry with you Nas. I wanted to hear your music, but I was afraid to support a cd titled NIGGER. I didn’t know what to expect.

Editorial By Cornell Dews

I watched and read as you attempted to promote your art. And I must admit that I became even more infuriated. The red carpet debacle at the Grammy’s, in which you, your wife and female crew adorned NIGGER tee shirts and your reasoning behind your intended message worried me. Then shortly after your album was released, I saw video footage of you in front of Fox News headquarters in New York City speaking about the blatant attacks on President elect Obama, his queen and other people of color. You presented the network with a petition with over 600,000 signatures. A plausible move, but I’ll be lying if I didn’t think to myself, “is he doing this for publicity?” I must be honest Nas, I felt embarrassed and ashamed. Then I listened to your music.

Allow me to say, I didn’t immediately purchase your album Untitled. No, it wasn’t until one of my colleagues asked me if I owned your new cd. At the time, I proudly said “no” and articulated to him why I bothered not to support your work and my feelings associated with your attempt to name your album NIGGER. He challenged me to listen to your album. Actually, he challenged me to confront my fears. Then I heard you say, “I’m Huey P in Louis V throwing molotovs for Emmitt.” And I said to myself, “that’s not nigger ideology, those are ideals of a revolutionary.” One well dressed I might add.

I recently read where 50 Cent said that you weren’t relevant in the game and just viewed a video by Soulja Boy proclaiming that you killed hip hop because you uttered the words that “hip hop is dead.” I can only assume that 50 Cent based your relevance on your most recent number sales. Well, I’ll be the first to admit Nas that I dropped the ball with this one. Usually when rappers sales are minimized, fingers are pointed at the record executives for not “supporting” the music by investing tons of money in marketing and promotion of the album. This time, it was us, the fans who let you down. Untitled is classic material. I know it went gold, just like you predicted in your song Testify when you said, “I don’t need yall, I’ll go gold with it.” And you did, but you should have sold more. I apologize.

I mean, your album entailed everything that defines classic material. It exemplified a stage in history, of not only hip hop, but the world. You captured a word that means so much to so many and made us deal with the feelings associated with it. By use of your art that came from your heart, you made me learn. In your music you referenced revolutionaries in George and Jonathan Jackson. In the same song, you mentioned the conspiracy theorist William Cooper. You metaphorically talked about fried chicken as if it were a lovely, but dangerous female. Talk about a double entendre.

“I’m fresh out of city housing, aint have too many options. Pennies on a pension or penitentiary bounded.”

Like many of your other verses, this one as well, surmises the life of so many black people. But it’s the ones like this that you articulated that made me do an Arsenio, “we changed the basis of derogatory phrases and I say it’s quite amazing.” You finished the verse by saying, “no matter where it came from it’s celebrated. Now people are mad if they aint one.” Now, I wouldn’t go that far, still I understand what you attempted to say.

Nas, I still refuse to identify myself as a nigger, spelled with either an ‘er’ or an ‘a’ ending. Nor will I identify my brothers as such. However, I don’t think your intent was to convince anyone that it was cool to be a nigger. Your James Baldwin quote in itself supports that statement.

But I’ve been a hypocrite Nas, and here’s how. Though I was hesitant to purchase your art because it was to be titled Nigger, I continued to support other artist’s music that used the term throughout the entire record. And to be quite honest most of the music that I supported was engulfed with ignorant shit. The word nigger was spewed throughout the albums. I could of expected to hear the word after any word that ended in an ‘er’ or ‘a’ sound, such as: trigger/trigga, bigger/bigga, or figgers/figgas. Nobody else who dropped albums during the same time came close to saying anything like: “spit Moses lost commandments like a gross sandwich out my mouth.” Still, we, me, I, a consumer gravitated more towards the other stuff. How ignorant was that? Take a stand against the album that’s titled Nigger, but is far from ignorant and strongly support albums not titled Nigger, but is laced with ignorant shit. I mean, I dance hard as hell when Lil Wayne’s Mrs. Officer song comes on in the club, even during the part when he says “beat it like a cop. Rodney King baby, say I beat it like a cop.” And for that Nas, I’m sorry.

Friends, please allow me to engage you for a minute. I feel that we, I mean I owe Nas an apology. You may feel differently, however, I’m curious to know:

1. Did you purchase Nas cd Untitled? If not, why didn’t you?
2. If you did purchase Nas cd Untitled, was it what you expected it to be?
3. Do you think Nas marketing ploy alienated some of his audience from supporting his art?
4. Have you listened to Untitled and if so, do you think it’s classic material?

Editorial By Cornell Dews

Tags: Nas

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 30th, 2008 at 3:18 pm and is filed under Editorial, Nas. You can skip to the end and leave a response.