Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar on the Shenanigans at the BET Awards

Children Dressed as Men in Hip-Hop: BET Hip-Hop Awards and Violence
By Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar

I hope Rick Ross and Young Jeezy read this letter. But it’s broader than these two rappers who were allegedly involved in a violent clash at the BET Hip-Hop Awards show to be aired October 9th. On September 29th Atlanta was abuzz with a wide range of events, notably the Atlanta Football Classic and two hip-hop-related events: the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collections Conference, and the BET Hip-Hop Awards. I spoke at the Tupac conference where people arrived from around the country to present papers on the meaning, and legacy of the world’s most successful rapper, and one of the most significant figures in music from the last quarter of the 20th century. I looked forward to seeing friends, scholars, and colleagues. I did not consider anyone getting shot, stabbed, beaten with a bottle of Moët, or stomped out in the lobby of the Robert W. Woodruff Library. Disagreements over the interpretations of Tupac would likely not lead to people running to “pop the trunk.” True to expectations, it was a fun, engaging, thoroughly rewarding violence-free event. Across town another hip-hop gathering was unfolding; and fools and thugs were infiltrating it. 

True to the most cynical expectations, the BET Hip-Hop Award show was tarnished by violence. According to police reports and eye witnesses, a brawl erupted backstage between the camps of rappers Rick Ross and Young Jeezy. It spilled into the parking lot at the Atlantic Civic Center where police pepper sprayed grown men fighting. A friend of mine, a conventionally-cynical “old head” remarked that commercial hip-hop, in its current state, is simply burdened by idiots, and idiocy. Many are no longer shocked that adult millionaires, some of whom are fathers and husbands in their 30s and older, would fight like school children settling disagreements with escalating taunts and violence. The ridiculous behavior is embarrassing, distressing to the wider hip-hop community and, simply put, stupid. This was more than a classic case of keeping-it-real-going-wrong. It is emblematic of a sordid culture of impulsive, irresponsible, and reckless behavior celebrated in verse and life. It is a blurring of the lines between studio and street for the artists. Incredibly talented artists, gifted with wit, charisma, business acumen and passion have allowed themselves to risk it all for foolish bravado and immature antics that they misinterpret as cool, courageous, and brave. I hope 50 Cent’s people read this.

Critics who are outside and inside of the Hip-Hop Generation have alleged that hip-hop has devolved into a mockery of itself. Rappers celebrate the joys of selling crack, killing black people and degrading black women. There is no adult male rapper who has gone platinum in the last decade who has not embraced at least one of these themes. Some allege that commercial hip-hop is a modern Minstrel Show: “Step right up! Not only can you listen to the songs about these fools assaulting each other, you can actually watch them do it in real life!” If you know The Game and 40 Glocc, please forward this note to them.

A few miles away from the violence at the BET Awards, the Tupac conference covered a wide range of topics related to his short, but impactful life. Like us all, Tupac was flawed, even in his brilliance. He loved his people, community and world. He wanted more for himself and those around him, even as he struggled to reconcile his hurt, trauma and conflict with others. In the end, conflict with others took his life. Part of his life story is, in some respects, a cautionary tale. 

While the prison industrial complex wreaks unprecedented havoc on black communities, while black youth are killed by the thousands in cities across the country, those who are at the center of [black] youth popular culture often herald prison like a rites-of-passage, and the drug trade like Pop Warner football. The murders of Tupac, Biggie, Jam Master Jay, Big L, and others in hip-hop are lamented, yet a tired, child-like cycle of beefs only inspire and provoke future possibilities of death and misery. It would be outrageous to even imagine Cornel West and Michael Eric Dyson cliqued up at a national academic conference and being pepper sprayed by police for trying to stomp out Henry Skip Gates and his boys. I hope for the day that it will be as unexpected and outlandish to imagine a scenario of violence at a hip-hop award show. Until that time, the wider hip-hop community remains a poster child of crass, crude stereotypes and infantile behavior, a miserable mockery of itself, with declining sales, narrowing of artistic creativity and an unabashed culture of self-destruction. I hope someone forwards this to Chief Keef, because this is what we don’t need or like.

*****

Jeffrey O. G. Ogbar is Vice Provost for Diversity and Professor of History at The University of Connecticut. He is the author of Hip Hop Revolution: The Culture and Politics of Rap and Black Power: Radical Politics and African American Identity.