The Economist discusses Hip Hop

citing John Mchorter, a famous black conservative scholar and hip hop fan:

"[Whorter] likes the group Outkast to Stravinsky. He admits that some hip-hop lyrics display an ungentlemanly attitude towards women, but he doubts that listening to violent lyrics causes people to behave more violently. if it did, there would be more opera fans stabbing their ex-lovers outside bullfights.

"Mr. Whorter also thinks people take hip-hop far too seriously. Those who disapprove of it vastly overestimate its capacity to corrupt. And those who expect it to foster a political revolution that will dramatically improve the lot of black Americans are going to be disappointed.

"The most popular rappers are brilliant entertainers. They also have done a lot to make people aware of the difficulties facing poor urban blacks. But their political views are neither politically acute nor central to their work. Consider the hot album of the moment: 'Tha Carter III" by Lil Wayne. Its central message is that if you are a rap star, you will get laid. The song 'Lollipop', for example, celebrates a young lady who treats Lil Wayne as she might a lollipop.

"On the last track Lil Wayne does get serious. He laments that 'one in every nine black Americans are locked up' and that 'the money that we spend on sending a motherfucker to jail...would be less to send his or her young ass to college.' Troy Nkrumah the chariman of the National Hip Hop Political Convention, thinks its wonderful that Lil Wayne is speaking truth to power. But if Lil Wayne is to be taken seriously, it needs to be pointed out that 'one in nine' figure is inaccurate--it is true only of black men age 20-34, not black Americans in general. And his analysis is simplistic: the government's spending priorities are not the sole determinant of whether you break rocks or read books."

Lil Wayne's analysis is simplistic? God bless the Economists: the earnest seekers of facts and counters of beans, for by the mighty force of numbers we shall see the truth and it shall set us free, and let not our personal biases distinguish among mortgage, Mugabe, and Lil Wayne on lollipops, let us engage them all on the same metric for we are equal, we are blind, and let us not be stopped by ignorance, by the turmoil of sentiment, and certainly not by absurdity.