List of Black or Latino Artists Awarded GRAMMY's Who Put Out or Promoted Violent Racism
Below is a list of artists, most being black rappers, who issue forth violent racism. The GRAMMY awards are voted on and administered by the Recording Academy, also called The National Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, Inc. (NARAS.) According to NARAS website (www.grammy.com), the corporation consists of over 13,000 musicians, producers, and "other recording professionals." Its "voting membership" bases award decisions not on "sales or chart positions" but rather on "artistic or technical achievement" in order "to honor excellence in the recording arts."
Some of the violently racist artistry awarded embraces the extremist symbolism's and doctrines of Communism or Marxist-Leninism. It is inconceivable that violently racist artistry, by whites, embracing extremist symbolism's and doctrines of Fascism or Nazism would be awarded or even nominated. By not taking action against the voting members of the Academy, the executives of Navarro Corporation have shown not only that they tolerate lyrics that call for the murder of whites, but also that they find extreme leftism tolerable. One could ask the voting members or the executives if they find extreme leftism having merit. One could also ask them if they find extreme leftism less threatening than extreme rightism.
The expression of violent racism can be indirect or direct, depending on the artist. An expression is indirect when an artist does not issue kill-the-whites messages, at least not according to the lyrics so far reviewed in the study, but he or she does express admiration of or conformity with other artists who do. Examples of direct violent racism usually take place in the form of calling on gangbangers to direct all crime at whites.
Not all of the awarded artists are black. One of the artists from Rage Against the Machine, for example, is not black but is Chicano. Besides the fact that whites participate in producing, marketing, distributing, retailing, and consuming hateful rap music, some of the musical groups have whites participating in various capacities. For example, Rage Against the Machine has two permanent band members who are white, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony is part of a larger collection of rappers called Mo Thugs which has one white rapper in a minor role. It appears that white musicians are likely to be Jews when they join in with blacks or Latinos to target whites. No doubt there are whites who participate in other ways besides rapping. Most of the groups, however, are made up solely of blacks.
The articles within the links reinforce, but do not establish, the fact that the rappers do not detach their own convictions from their musical messages, or the fact that they are not simply storytellers. It is not necessary for the articles to establish that fact because their commitment to a cause is well established in hip-hop culture already, even the personal nature and universality of it. The articles support that fact by showing how the rappers relay personal information about themselves and how they constantly use their own names in order to establish a personal connection with listeners. Most of the articles have the same basic structure. There are quotes above each article which demonstrate violent racism In the articles, it is shown how the rappers make their race a central issue by using black identity or brown identity phrases, and the racial identity quotes help us to identify their target, who is sometimes identified as "the other man," as being whites in society.
The articles do not show all connections to violent racism by the GRAMMY Award winning artists listed above, and the articles do not show all GRAMMY Award winning artists who promote violent racism. Readers are encouraged to research the topic and present findings for public scrutiny.
References
The quotes by The Recording Academy were obtained from its web site (http://www.grammy.com) on January 20, 1999.
Posted at http://home.att.net/~phosphor on June 30, 1999.