Friday, February 6, 1998
Bad vibes?
MUSIC:
By Michael Gillette
Daily Bruin Contributor
The last two years have been tumultuous for the hip-hop
community. The legal woes of Suge Knight and the shooting deaths of
Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls), two
of rap’s biggest stars, have focused people’s attention on hip-hop
culture’s most unsavory aspects.
Both in and outside the community, the role the media played in
these events has been much talked about. People have openly accused
mainstream magazines like Vibe and the Source of fanning the flames
of the "East Coast-West Coast" rivalry that allegedly was the root
of the two killings, by running sensationalized stories that played
up the grievances between Shakur and Biggie.
Lachlan McIntyre, who owns and publishes the Oakland-based 4080
magazine, holds this view. "I blame the Source and Vibe for the
deaths of Tupac and Biggie," McIntyre says. But while he says that
journalism has been irresponsible in the past, he also thinks the
mood is changing now.
"Hip-hop is a young art form," McIntyre says. "And hip-hop
journalism is young. It’s only been in the last five years that
people have wanted to be hip-hop journalists."
McIntyre views the sensational tone that accompanied the
coverage of the Tupac-B.I.G. rivalry as the types of mistakes that
come with learning as one goes. As things settle while reporters
and editors reassess their role, he sees a new type of coverage
emerging, one more personal and more about the artist.
Someone who shares this view is Seanie Smith, who writes the rap
column for Billboard magazine, and who has covered rap for several
years. "It’s not just the magazines," Smith says."It’s the whole
community that’s stepping back after Biggie and Tupac and saying it
can’t be like that."
But Smith says that reporters are becoming more aware of the
role they can play in helping the community. "Magazines can act
like a gateway," Smith adds, "by not focusing on the negative. If
there’s a beef, they don’t have to play it up. I just read an
article on (TLC’s) Left Eye. She’s someone who’s been through a
lot, but the article was positive."
Both Smith and McIntyre say that what makes hip-hop unique is
that fans of the music look at its musicians as peers, and they
look to hip-hop magazines for very personal information. "There’s a
lot of rumors in the hip-hop community, and a fan will look to a
magazine to find out what the truth is," Smith says. "They’ll say,
‘Okay, on his record he brags about driving this kind of car, but
what car does he really own?’"
This intimacy is lacking in mainstream media’s coverage of the
culture, Smith says. Both she and McIntyre fault publications like
Rolling Stone and Spin for turning their attention to hip-hop only
when something sensational or out-of-the-ordinary happens. "With
mainstream media, a lot of times it’s reporters who come to the
music and to the artists with a prejudiced point of view," Smith
says. "They won’t really care about the whole picture. They’ll know
about the arrests, maybe, but they won’t know about the other side
of things."
Vibe magazine has the largest subscription among magazines that
cover hip-hop and R&B music. Vibe’s music editor David Bry says
that he knows what’s been said about Vibe’s part in Tupac and
B.I.G.’s deaths. And while he does not go so far as admitting
responsibility, he does say that he and co-workers were very shaken
and remorseful during last year’s events.
"The general attitude around here for people was that it was
really, really horrible," Bry says. "And not even like we felt like
we did specific things wrong, but just like, ‘It’s all so ugly.
God, do I want to quit my job because it’s now involved stuff that
can get that bad.’"
Vibe has persevered, though, and thrived in the crowded hip-hop
magazine marketplace. Vibe itself is faulted by others in the
industry for focusing its attention on rap artists who are well
established, at the expense of up-and-coming or underground acts.
Bry has heard this, but doesn’t necessarily agree.
"Some people feel like we need to do more underground stuff,"
Bry says. "But we actually get more response when we do something
on someone as big as Puffy (Combs). That’s what people all around
the country, kids in (places like) suburban Kansas want to read
about. There are other magazines that are definitely more straight
hip-hop, like Rap Pages. Vibe is pretty happy to be a pop magazine
covering the big stars of urban culture."
Bry shares Smith’s disappointment with mainstream media’s faulty
coverage of hip-hop culture, but he also points out a kind of
symbiosis he sees taking place.
"You see the New York Times now using the word ‘dis’ all the
time now," Bry points out. "It’s weird. You see words from the
vernacular entering the mainstream, and as hip-hop gets bigger you
see hip-hop being written about and analyzed the way mainstream pop
was before it."
One person who finds fault with much of the coverage of hip-hop
at large is writer Havlov Nelson. Nelson has covered the hip-hop
scene for years at Billboard. In addition, he worked with NARAS to
create the rap categories for the Grammys and with the curators of
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in designing the hip-hop exhibit
that is now on display. Nelson says he’d like to see the approach
that the hip-hop press takes to their coverage change.
"It really needs to get back to a little more of a cultural
orientation, and I think a lot of the magazines aren’t doing that,"
Nelson says. "They’re just fueling a lot of the rumors. They aren’t
really searching and nominating a lot of the artists who are on the
underground. They’re just capitalizing on who’s hot."
"It was an option that artists used to have," Nelson adds. "If
you weren’t getting played on the radio, you could at least count
on the press to champion your record and give you a life."
Nelson connects this trend directly with what happened in the
cases of Shakur and B.I.G. "I think Tupac for one knew the power of
the media, and he discovered that if you create controversy and you
make yourself into this ‘thug life’ character, the media will
respond. When Tupac was doing more culturally oriented music, no
one took notice. But when the controversy was (that) he hated
Biggie and he hated Puffy, they took notice and they fed off of
that."
Nelson says he’s encouraged by Rap Pages, which he’s observed as
making choices based more on merit than sales. He sees this as
necessary for maintaining a community with a very specific and
special king of audience.
"Fans of rock-and-roll and jazz look at the artists like they’re
up on a pedestal," Nelson says. "These are the artists and these
are the fans," he said. "But with hip-hop there’s less of a
separation. Fans want to feel close to the artists, they want to
know what’s going on in their world. They have a very voracious
appetite for these things. It’s very insatiable."