A Hip-Hop Commentary

Okay, so Imus is an idiot who got fired for being a racist, but should the Hip-Hop community be under fire for what he said?

Here's the thing. The language in Hip-Hop and the misogyny and "glamour" of the alleged pimp game that it portrays have been going on for over a decade now. Who cares if they are going to clean up their act now that Imus made some lousy comments about African-American women? I mean, he's wrong and the Hip-Hop community's been wrong, so why now?

Hasn't the damage of the Hip-Hop community been done? Hasn't there been too many casualties in Hip-Hop prior to Imus? And most importantly, what does Imus' comments have to do with Hip-Hop? The recent Hip-Hop summit and Al Sharpton's revocation of an award that was being given to L.A. Reid are just like the current name of this genre and most of its messages: backwards and just plain dumb.

A colleague of mine made an interesting point about the whole Hip-Hop debate under the Imus attack: Change starts within the community. Hip-Hop should have been cleaned up long before now and needs to return to its original roots where songs with real messages about urban life like "The Message" and "New York, New York" reigned supreme. But no, in the meantime, and over a decade too late I might add, there's talk of cleaning up the messages in the music.

Hip-Hop, it's too late for that. Clean up your community first.

Am I right, or am I wrong?