Thursday, October 9, 1997
Grammy Festival casts voodoo spell on campus with symposium,
concerts
Q&A:
By J. Jioni Palmer
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Kevin Powell, author of "Keepin’ It Real" is an insightful up
and coming social critic. This former writer for Vibe magazine and
original cast member of MTV’s the "The Real World," sat down with
Daily Bruin Viewpoint Editor J. Jioni Palmer to discuss his new
book. Powell, who has interviewed such hip-hop artists as "Naughty
by Nature" and the late Tupac Shakur, shares his thoughts on
relationships, culture and politics.
How much of "The Real World,"end product is representative of
what actually went on?
MTV’s "Real World," the first year which was New York City, I’d
say was about 80 percent real. Be it the arguments, be it one of
the cast members, Becky, actually having an affair with the
director, be it Heather be actually punching someone in the face at
that party — all of that stuff actually happened.
Is there a difference between Generation X and the Hip Hop
Generation, sometimes called the Hip Hop Nation?
Well, when I think of the Hip Hop Generation, I mean, my first
thing is I think of black and Latino youth because that’s the
engine that created Hip Hop culture 20 some odd years ago. You
can’t talk about Hip Hop without talking about the contributions of
black and Latino young people, particularly black and Latino
males.
Now you see white kids with the baggy jeans and the goatees you
know what I’m saying, saying, "what’s up son, how you doing" and
"yo, kid" and so the Hip Hop Generation is people who appreciate
Hip Hop culture, just like the Rock ‘n Roll generation were people
who appreciated rock culture.
And so, I think what broader Generation X is obviously like what
they call our whole generation, I think Hip Hop is almost like a
sub culture of the larger Generation X culture if you will. Just
like there are kids who are into grunge. There is no way to know
Generation X without knowing Hip Hop. To me, it is the soundtrack
for this era.
Recently at UCLA, the resident halls banned hip hop from being
played in the front desk public area for a period of about two
months. In your book you said that you wonder if a lot of the
"heavy-handed" critiques or criticisms of Hip Hop are just
borderline racism. Without knowing the specifics of that incident
in the dorms, would you care to talk about just Hip Hop censorship
and the mainstream attacks that it has received?
Well, I mean historically, black cultural expression has always
been attacked by the mainstream, particularly if it is being bought
or supported by white youth. You know a lot of people were afraid
of rock ‘n roll music in the beginning because it was a black art
form that white youth were getting into. And they were able to.
But, rap music is a black male dominated music form that is
bought by white kids all over this country. A lot of older white
Americans don’t like that. They don’t like the fact that kids are
learning about black culture. I don’t think they like the fact that
black culture has come into their community. There kids are
dressing like black kids, talking like black kids, etc.
I’m not surprised by what’s going on here at UCLA because, you
know,, people like to scapegoat black people or black music and to
ban it because they feel it’s threatening. But I find it
interesting, like I say in the book, that when Kurt Cobain
committed suicide, no one was saying ‘We need to ban alternative
rock.’ I think it’s ridiculous.
As a self-described Hip Hop journalist, what is the significance
— you’ve talked about it kind of peripherally in the last question
— but what is the significance of Hip Hop to our generation and to
the development of American culture and identity?
Hip Hop is everywhere. Man, to me it means winning on our own
terms. I would not be sitting here if it wasn’t for Hip Hop
culture, you know what I’m saying? Tommy Hilfiger; it shapes
fashion. It shapes part of our language, our American vernacular.
Everywhere you go, you see it in commercials. You see it on the
streets. It’s everywhere man. It’s just like you know with rock ‘n
roll, it became a part of the American fabric.
You’ve said that music greatly influenced the development of
this book, "Keepin’ It Real," and that you wanted "Love Letters" to
be a literary equivalent of an album full of love songs. In your
opinion, what is the relationship between music and literature?
I feel that anything – be it Langston Hughes influenced and jazz
influenced, up until Paul Beatty’s book, "The White Boy Shuffle" –
you can see the Hip Hop influences in there. I mean this book, I
wrote listening to music. A lot of Al Green, you know Al Green kind
of permeated the whole book in a lot of ways. I just love Al
Green’s music. Music is just very essential to black literature
historically.
I don’t think there is any way to read a slave narrative of
Frederick Douglas without hearing some call and responses in the
fields, you know what I’m saying? And so that’s what I’m talking
about when I say there is an integral relationship between music
and literature.
You write very poignantly about the pangs of growing up and
living poor, black, young and male in America and the challenges
that this reality presents. How then do you expect this book to
confront the pervasive nihilism among many in our generation?
Wow, I mean one book is not going to do it. But, even if I can
just touch a couple of people along the way, and have some critical
dialogue. One of the reasons that I wanted to write this book is
because I feel like a lot of leaders — academic leaders, political
leaders, spiritual leaders, whatever, older heads — ain’t really
raising questions.
I’ve got to be a voice for the kids who are in South Central,
who are in Jersey City, where I grew up, who are in Brooklyn where
I live now. If I can just touch one person the way "The
Autobiography of Malcolm X," the way "Manchild In The Promised
Land," and the way "Down These Mean Streets," have touched me, then
I feel like I’ve done my job on some level.
You write a lot about your experience growing up in a female
single headed household and how that affected your relationships
with women, and even to a certain extent, father, and other men.
The phenomenon of single parenting continues to be a trend among
Americans as a whole, not just black folk. How are gender dynamics,
both inter- and intra-impacted, because of this?
I know, my definitions of manhood as I was being raised were
really complex definitions because on one hand, my mother was
saying, "Don’t be like your father." On the other hand, what I was
seeing in my neighborhood was that men were — and I didn’t know
this at the time — basically objectifying women. So, I couldn’t
quite understand this whole gender thing. It just seemed very
confusing to me. It just seemed like men and women just did not get
along.
I think that our definitions of maleness and femaleness for the
most part are whacked in this society. I just feel like that. And I
think those definitions are the reasons we have such dysfunctional
relationships with each others, why we have messed up relationships
with our mothers and our fathers and why it’s passed down from one
generation to another. I really believe that. I feel like a lot of
us are not trying to evolve. We just become sponges and we accept
things that are given to us without ever questioning them. And it’s
really no fault of our own because talk in the culture bombards us
with these images you know.
After having read your book, it’s obvious that you’re making a
conscious effort to re-examine your relationships with women and
your own internal sexism What would you say to other men who have
either identified sexism as a problem within themselves or who
don’t even know that’s it’s a problem?
I would say to other men, don’t wait until you do something
really ignorant or something that is going to really profoundly
affect your life. For me it was pushing my ex-girlfriend into a
bathroom door. For some brothers it’s having a baby, not even
having any emotional equipment, not only to take care of
themselves, but to take care of that child and relate to that
woman. That’s just so important to really think about what you’re
doing with your life. I mean we’re all young.
I think men need to do this — you need to read bell hooks,
Gloria Steinem, Angela Davis, Pearl Cleage; read female writers. I
feel like a much fuller human being over the last five years having
read these different female writers as well and not getting
defensive if someone like Alice Walker puts out "The Color Purple."
These women are not writing in a vacuum — these experiences
actually exist.