Do You Hear Me Now Black Male Vulnerability Don Cornelius Soul Train

Sugar’s Take

Like i said before Lil Wayne is a genius. He has mixed two of the greatest elements to make a great compound, genius and hard work. Weezy is everywhere, doing everything. And after seeing the CBS video, “Stuntin Like My Daddy” makes sense. Here’s a young cat, with no father figure, taken in by a couple hustlers (though you can’t tell who’s really hustilin these days…a la Rick Ross) and treated like family. They end up starting a successful record label in the South, long before magazines and award shows were pimpin places like Atlanta. And their youngest but most consistent artist breaks the mold and sales records. Can you imagine what Young Money is dealing with?

His statement about altering his name– to disconnect from the legacy of his father– had the resonance of a Langston Hughes poem. Who’s name is James, but used Langston to separate from his father. Lil Wayne is obviously in a bit of pain. Not sure who is the blacksmith of his shackles, but as it’s always been, he’s using music to break free.

As for the gangster stuff, I’m still not sure why everyone is still tooting that horn. I don’t see being a gangster or hustler as glamorous, those are lifestyles of necessity. I always notice that anytime a gangster or hustler goes just an inch past necessity something goes wrong. It could be fictional like Montana or real like the Godmother. If you don’t know who the Godmother is I suggest you find out. Once you see the movie you will never look at a drug dealer the same again. And hey, it’s what most rappers are doing anyway…watching movies. 

Ed’s Take

I love Lil Wayne…kinda like a distant cousin that never makes it to the family reunion.   Beyond his efforts to promote a hard exterior, Lil Wayne is the modern day poster child for black male vulnerability. How so? His pain is masked in cultural production and hidden in a palatable format; HIP HOP.  As I discussed in a previous blog (Fake Rappers & DrugCulture), gangsta personas are often employed as defense mechanisms to cope in a world of marginalization where black males are historically emasculated. Self preservation becomes the order of the day because, as Sugar says, “aint no calgon in the hood.”  So, art becomes catharsis.  Pain sounds much better ridin’ a hot beat.

America is about power.  Undergdogs luv stickin’ it to the proverbial “man” (i.e oppressors, bosses, anything establishment or status quo).  So, when Lil Wayne says he is a gangsta, he is really saying: ” I am a self made man, successful on my own terms, and side stepping limited expectations.”  I admit Lil Wayne’s brilliance often gets lost in translation because of the tattoos and thug persona, but I am reminded of a killer Andre 3000 verse that breaks it down…so it can forever and consistently be broke:

Now question
Is every nigga with dreads for the cause?
Is every nigga with golds for the fall? Naw
So don’t get caught in appearance
It’s Oukast Aquemini another Black experience

The most telling part of the interview is how Lil Wayne channels pain (absentee father, Katrina and Black death, abject poverty, etc.). His journey is a never ending search for those ever evasive “love experiences” we crave since birth.

So tell your kids Lil Wayne is a flawed human being; as we all are.  But on closer examination, he is, in many ways, similar to them…a man struggling for inner peace as he gets his dreams out of layaway.