The Cool Indeed

Now while I realize that I am a thirty-something white girl from Alberta, I have a confession to make: Lupe Fiasco is my boyfriend.

And I can’t get enough of his second album, The Cool, which is already a year old. But here’s the thing: I really feel guilty and conflicted about listening to hip-hop and rap music. Why? Well, because I just don’t know enough about it to be making informed decisions. And I don’t always listen to the words. For all I know, they could be talkin’ ‘bout shootin’ down Ns and Hos. And you know, who needs that kind of negative messages in their music? And honestly, I don’t want to support anyone who thinks it’s cool and popular to disrespect women or have gunfire embedded in their songs.

There are so many histrionics that I just don’t know enough about that I feel like a ridiculous fraud for listening to music that I don’t really understand or couldn’t even defend were I ever in a position which warranted it. This may be residual “role model anxiety” from my teaching days and I should probably get over it since I have no children or School Boards to answer to. I just wanna like what I like without somehow crossing any lines.

So far, my musical tastes have been pretty mainstream and innocuous. I listen to Outkast and Gnarls Barkley and N*E*R*D and Erikah Badu. I stick with Common and Lupe and The Roots and that’s pretty much it. And the Roots scare me in a hard-core kind of way. Like they are going to come on out of their album and kick the shit out me, which I also kind of like.

But I actually feel like I should do some research or something before I start singing the praises of rappers or hip-hops artists. And in fact, I’m not sure I even necessarily know the difference between the two genres. I also feel like I haven’t earned the right to listen to them because I grew up in a homogeneous hockey town in the Prairies.

Yes Readers, it's true: I have white middle-class suburban guilt for listening to hip-hop music. Not to sound old and white (which I am) is it really necessary to use the N word so often. I mean, really? Like my friend L says, the reason that you very rarely hear the word ‘Cracker’ to describe a white person is because WE DON’T CALL OURSELVES THAT. I get that it’s all about you taking back the power and changing the meaning and claiming it as your own. But really? Do ya hafta? Cause I think your music would be as good without it. And although that may be how it started, how many teenagers know that? And how many of the Gangsta rappas out there know that? And is that what it really means? Or has it now become so ubiquitous that it no longer has any meaning at all? I dunno. And I know this argument is as old as the hills. But I also know that I get the heeby-jeebies every time I hear it and cringe a little when it is being belted out from my car stereo.

And yet. I still can’t help myself.

I can’t stop listening to good (and sometimes bad) hip-hop and rap music.

But how do I distinguish between L’il Wayne and Lupe Fiasco and The Roots? Are some better than others? Well the answer is absolutely YES. And what makes it right to listen to Lupe and wrong, oh so wrong to listen to Ol' Dirty Bastard? (Other than the fact that he is dead?) And although I have no answers as to whether it’s right or wrong to be listening to Lupe Fiasco, not listening to him because he uses the N word or on a matter of principle would be the same as me converting over to Christian rock because I ‘wasn’t comfortable’ with the message of pop music or rock ‘n roll. I don’t know how to absolve myself of the guilt, or even if I need to.

What I do know is that The Cool rocks. I don’t have the vocabulary or the history or the background knowledge to pontificate intelligently on what makes The Cool such a great album. I do know that I sing out loud in my car and that Lupe Fiasco is cute and has a great name and his music makes me happy and makes me dance and do a bum dance in my chair.

So there.