Hip Hop
Vlad invited me to a hip hop show last night.
I needed to get out of the house, so he, I and another friend of his trudged through the rain to Terasa Eminescu.
Vlad warned me that Bere (another friend) and I would probably the uncoolest dressed people there. I had no idea what to wear. Vlad looked like a raver posterboy in big pants and a hoodie. In the end, I threw on a pair of jeans and a zip-up sweater.
We got there and met his friends. The girls were all wearing big jeans, tshirts with corporate logos on them and Jamaica and Brazil flag wristbands. Not to mention marijuana leaf jewelery.
I also felt like a grandmother. I was probably one of the oldest people there at 24. Vlad and his friends are in their early 20s. The rest of the audience were 16-17. One of the girls was named Carla though. She got all excited and gave me high five when she heard my name.
I was discussing marijuana with Septe, another friend. Drugs in Romania are illegal and we doubted if anyone in the crowd had tried pot although I saw pictures of the plant everywhere. I jokingly mentioned that this would be like me walking around with a plastic needle hanging around my neck.
So then we got into an in-depth discussion of the different sorts of rap. The only Romanian rap I am acquainted with is Parazitii, whose hit while I was here was "Fuck You Romania". The music video shows lovely clips of Nastase and Basescu falling asleep during meetings.
They played a lot of French political hip hop. I couldn't understand all the lyrics, but heard "Mahgreb" a lot. I translated what I could. I wanted to laugh at the Romanian kids bopping their heads along to the French rap, but then I realised I was doing the same thing during the Romanian music, even though I couldn't understand the lyrics.
Septe and I walked across the street. The music was so loud, but I was enjoying our conversation. We talked about the prominence of rap and hip hop in Romanian society and the facination that many youth have with rap lyrics. Especially since "I shot a nigga and took his bling. EAST SIDE YO" doesn't actually pertain to normal Romanian society.
2 Comments:
see that idea pisses me off (the one in your last sentence). why in feck WOULD Romanians care about that? it's not even good rap (Public Enemy, KRS1, Erick B & Rakim). It's the trash of American pop culture that they latch onto. That's why it's disappointing. Everything that's shite offered by America, the world latches onto. Everything that is good and dynamic here (in the States) never sees the light of day. The real artists and musicians and writers and poets are living like dogs in shitty co-ops, starving to death, making $7/hr serving coffee to fat pigs.
I think that internationally, hip-hop means more than just what the lyrics say. For the French, as Karla pointed out with the Magrehb comment, hip-hop is about politics. "Philosophes de la rue", philosophers of the street. They speak on current political topics and about the plight of life in the projects.
American hip-hop is about the same thing. Now, American RAP is something that has gotten out of control, but that isn't to say that it's all bad.
As far as the French, they like Eminem because it sounds good. You don't even have to speak English to know that the way he puts words together sounds like a tongue twister and that's cool. Dude makes some pretty catchy beats, $7/hour or not.
Music is music, whether your French, Romanian or American. If you like it, you're gonna buy it. If not, you'll leave it alone. The moral quality of it can and will always be debated but nothing will ever be decided because that's personal.
I don't think it's bad that "bad" rap is popular in foreign countries, and I don't think it's bad that youth the world over try to mimic American styles (You remember being a teenager, right? It's never cool to be what you are). What I think is absolutely tragic is that we don't realize that we send out incredibly conflicting messages. Our pop-culture embrasses the rebel/outlaw image and our government confirms that by trying to regulate it. That's why my french students were surprised when I didn't show up in a cowboy hat and/or wearing a puffy jacket and carrying a .45.
What we have to remember is that we all grow up. We all reach the point of feeling too old and out of place in a pop-culture environment. Our tastes change and so do societies'. Trying to judge someone for their taste at any given point is ridiculous. Chances are that in 10 years they'll look back in what they used to wear/watch/listen to and laugh. (Remember the late 80s early 90s?!)
Anyway, interesting post! I loved going to hip-hop clubs in France and listening to the French hip-hop stations where you could hear Fifty-Cents uncensored 24/7. Hilarious.
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