B. Hurt

After leaving class last night I couldn''t get the images and words from Byron's film out of my head. As I flipped through the radio the negative sounds of current hip hop washed over me. Ironically, one song stuck out as it seemed to brake the mold of most songs, Tupac's "Keep Ya Head Up." In this song Tupac provides his audience with a freshing take on the female persona. He sings

"And since we all came from a woman

Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies, that make the babies
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up
I know you're fed up ladies, but keep your head up

Keep ya head up, oooo child things are gonna get easier
ooooo child things are gonna get brighter"

I find it encouraging that this song is still being played on the radio. But is it only because of the
'epic' that has become Tupac Shakur? I wonder.

In thinking of Byron's film I found what Chuck D had to say particularly interesting. He said that the issue with hip hop's 'demise' is the image of the black man in America. The standards to how he is supposed to act. The expectations of a black man are contradictory. They should be tough and hard, but also church going and compassionate. It is this contradication that I'm sure confuses a young black man as to how he should act and behave. I think that there should be more men committed to what Byron is doing. If no one stands up and tells young men how they should act how will they know? Especially when the media is throwing negative role models in their face all the time...