Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Nas & Controversy
Continuing on the subject I touched upon with Jay-Z, Nasir Jones, better known as the legendary rapper Nas, stirred his own controversy last year when he realized his new album. Originally, he wanted to title it "Nigger" in order to break the perception that this word carried the same meaning it once did. He was trying to remove it from that list of forbidden words and put it on the one that says it is outdated and no applicable. But the outcry, from "experts" like Bill O'Reilly, and the general public was a concoction of shock, dismay, and outrage. For a few weeks, Nas held firm saying that he was doing this to convey his message. However, a couple weeks before the album was dropped, he relented and changed the title simply to "Nas." He was attempting to show that the way it is used is simply stupid now and calling attention to it would help erase it from our current vocabulary. But the public said that we aren't ready to do that and that is simply a shame.
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I was pretty intrigued when I heard that Nas was going to name that album Nigger. It was obviously a pretty provocative named for an album. Nas has always been pretty socially outspoken both in his music and in real life. I had a feeling that this bold move wouldn't go through, and I was right. The cd came out through Def Jam and Columbia records so I have a sneaking suspicion that it was their decision to change the name of the album, not Nas'
ReplyDeleteThe word cetainly doesn't have the same connotation that it had say 50 years ago, but it still is an offensive word. You can't go around and call people niggers nowadays without getting the crap kicked out of you and rightly so. The context that he was using it in was fine but the word itself will remain stigmatize at least for the rest of our lives.
ReplyDeleteI wonder what they would have done in CD stores... It would have been edited, or the stores would have put stickers over it... I don't think that would have sent a message at all... Or at least not the intended one. It would have sent the message that, this is still a bad word and we aren't even going to discuss the title, in fact, we're gunna cover it up. I don't see a huge problem with the word, but I see why people do.
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