Quincy Jones, Lil Wayne, and African American Culture

Dear friends,

With all due respect to Quincy Jones and the overwhelming majority of African American artists, including musicians: the sounds, words, and images that have been revealed by the people mentioned, since the end of the Civil War, are completely different than what our ancestors did prior to that period.

That is, songs and pictures, as well as acts of liberation, in both open and subtle forms, were in honor of the collective unconscious of African American people. What Dr. W.E.B. DuBois referred to as the "sorrow songs" came from Blues and later Gospel music.

Nonetheless, it was always about liberation, whether personally or as a group. And so the songs, for example, not only showed despair, but relief from that wrenching emotion.

Finally, considering the fact that Lil Wayne and these other lowlife morons don't even have the dignity to honor and carry themselves in a respectful way, while thinking about those who will follow them, icons like Quincy Jones, who has spent most of his career trying to legitimize the music of European rulers and their offshoots in the Americas, should accept, at least, some of the culpability for not having enriched himself with both a deeper intellect and integrity that would've helped young African American people of today express and share the messages of our ancestors. After all, Dr. DuBois and many other African American scholars and intellectuals were around when Jones was coming. This is also especially true, since the conditions of the overwhelming majority of African American people have not changed qualitatively, much less substantially… 

Cheers!

G. Djata Bumpus

http://www.hiphopdx.com/index/news/id.28204/title.quincy-jones-says-it-s-hard-to-get-used-to-lil-wayne-/