A Dying Breed?...Hip-Hop and Violence

Summary

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"One of the things that got lost in the media coverage of Proof's death is that it wasn't related to hip-hop at all," said Khari Kimani Turner, founder and leader of Black Bottom Collective. "Hip-hop got thrown into the spotlight because of who Proof was. Had cooler heads prevailed on both sides, Proof and Keith Bender Jr. would be alive today."

"Hip-hop now has (rappers) who are old enough to be sensitive about what they're putting out there," Turner continued. "My advice to our elders would be not to try to get hip-hop to back to what it was. As a culture, it stands on its own. It's rooted in disenfranchisement. Hip-hop has always been about establishing its own way."

"Rap emanates from the streets," he said. "From the streets comes the sex, the drugs and the violence, and rap being born of that, is going to mirror all that. When it comes to Black-on-Black crime, we're still suffering from the psychological legacy of slavery, even though we don't want to admit it, and the coldest part about it is that knowledge is at an all-time low. Regardless of what's going on (in the streets), rap is going to voice that. Do they go hand-in-hand? You're d- right they go hand in hand."

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A Dying Breed?...Hip-Hop and Violence

The violent death of rapper Proof made it clear to some that the blood-soaked connection between hip-hop culture and the culture of violence can no longer be dismissed. Others believe the rap star's death was exploited by the media to paint a distorted and inaccurate picture in an attempt to wrongly vilify...

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