Critic Attacked; Ice Cube Defended
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Hitsville was surprised, at a recent panel discussion on gangsta rap, to find an extreme tolerance of anti-Semitism among what was otherwise a pretty smart assemblage of hip-hop-loving youth. The scene was the usual Guild Complex Wednesday session at the HotHouse; besides a few disappointed poets (there was no open mike that night) the crowd was mostly black kids interested enough in the subject to turn up on a cold night to hear owner of the Triple XXX record store Bobby Sox, writer Rosalind Cummings, rapper Duro, and me talk. Hitsville’s relatively mild disapprobation of certain of hard-core rap’s more pungent subjects–which include vicious misogyny, insolent homophobia, and occasional racism against whites–didn’t go over that well; but while I was at pains to say how infrequent anti-Semitism actually is in rap, it was this subject that provoked the most opposition from the crowd. A cordial “Fuck you” was one audience member’s response; others went to some length to explain, rationalize, or gloss over Ice Cube’s infamous line, “You let a Jew / Break up my crew.” (The line was directed at his bandmates in N.W.A., and referred to the band’s manager; the epithet is to my knowledge the one unquestionable instance of such sentiment in a rap song by a major artist.) Defenders of the lyric argued that the word “Jew” isn’t necessarily negative and that, anyway, Cube needed it for the rhyme. At times the room erupted into general shouting; while a few people applauded Hitsville’s position, most of the room was against me. No one challenged a woman from the audience who yelled out, “Are you a Jew?”
