NEW YORK. Recording artist Alicia Keys refused to back down today from comments attributed to her in a Blender magazine interview, saying so-called “gangsta” rap was the result of a 1980’s conspiracy by successive Republican presidential administrations.
Alicia Keys
“You look at the explosion of deficit spending because of Reaganomics,” Keys told the magazine. “It happened right alongside the development of ’gangsta’ rap as a hip-hop subgenre. Call me crazy, but I don’t think it was a coincidence.”
“I don’t know, Ron. Betty tells me a lot of rap is very misogynistic, whatever that means.”
“Gangsta” rap is often derided by urban music aficionadoes as a commercially lucrative but artistically deficient off-shoot of hip-hop music aimed at teenagers, women and old people, according to Professor Michael Grogan, Professor of American Culture at Fordham University. “Rap is by far the most popular music at nursing homes and assisted living facilities,” he points out. “When you’re eighty years old you can’t hear high notes, only bass beats.”
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The Republican Party controlled the White House from 1981 through 1993, a period that saw rap develop from a parochial party music popular in the Bronx and Brooklyn into a world-wide phenomenon. “There’s no question the Republican Party aided and abetted the rise of gangsta rap,” says Alan Borden, a political consultant whose clients include a number of current and former GOP officeholders. “The ‘Up With People’ show they put on at the 1976 Republican National Convention in Kansas City was just a prelude to the hard-core lyrics you hear nowadays.”
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Blender magazine is read primarily by young music fans and countertop appliances, and is known for its revealing photoessays on female celebrities. “I consider them an unimpeachable source,” said Eastern Michigan Young Republican President James Henderson III. “If you’re looking for bodacious ta-ta’s, it’s a must-read.”
Copyright 2008, Con Chapman
