sunez
SUNSET STYLE: The Next Element of Hip Hop
“I suggest you take your bloody mess and find a piece of wire, fix your broken jaw, then it’s time to retire. Lord Jamar will live long, cuz I give strong blows to the heads of my foes…”
– “Punks Jump Up to Get Beat Down” – Lord Jamar of Brand Nubian
Imagine Profiles in Power where the Super Bowl Skirts line worn and made by Snake Alikes, Inc. was ruined by the campaign of insight by Lord Jamar. We’re steeped in a world of corruption that certain men of honor work to solve. So backward that I note the positive absurdities like Wisemen coming from the West and broken homes filled with families and with what I know I must give the talent of illyorkers a listen just as the respect has been afforded me. So my words here are cranberry ink dripping uteral delight to season the womb of all the women they’ll leave behind. The children are the best part, the fruit, so the rule is:
Anything done wrong by many or all is still wrong. Anyone doing other things well or great while doing a wrong are still committing a wrong.
Religion, a belief in a greater salvation, is especially designed for the negation of this scenario allowing any and all to keep doing wrong and expecting/allowing it to continue. Now Lord Jamar, with a spirituality that is not based on religion, the same place this writer is crowned from, the Nation of God and Earth, is not religious. Lord Jamar’s twitter account (@lordjamar) details clearly that his concerns are not about attacking homosexuals but the confusion brought to the young through our Hip Hop culture, a set of expressions created and developed by Black and Brown people all merging here in the South Bronx. His insights on the history of effeminizing Black male artists, particularly his focus on African Americans (though there must be a note made of this occurring with any of our people making music, from Salsa to Reggae, sold commercially in the USA) making Blues, Jazz, Soul, R&B, Disco up to Hip Hop here. A strategy that has constantly been necessary or desired to make the oppressed ones palatable to the larger buying market (aka white folk).
So the concerns of those that do a wrong, a wrong I personally have continued to claim is homosexuality, is like any other wrong. No one is necessarily evil for a wrong but they can be damned wrong. One drinks an abhorrent amount of liquor he’s wrong as hell but not necessarily evil. American citizens believe they are superior to the world and don’t want any Mexicans here are completely wrong. They might be evil. All in all, this Hip Hop is a rebellious form of expression for the reactions to our oppression, the exposure of our creativity and even the rebirth of the knowledge of ourselves.
The God Lord Jamar Allah, unmixed, undiluted and untampered with
Now when you effeminize the artist, the young accept that as the way to be. The way to be, softened up, keeps them ready to be molded by the wrong truth. That that Black/Brown man isn’t supposed to be trained a leader of strength, repose, dignity and the foundation to that Black/Brown woman beside him. That’s not everybody’s calling? Absolutely. Is that in the nature of every Black and Brown young male? Emphatically yes. We are in the climatic fallout of political correctness where only the cleverness of subtle words has prevailed. Winning by including all that is wrong is the way of the day. Never allowing us to decide what is right by the same westernized mindsets that find commentary against police brutality, corporate & daily racism, poverty, moral corruption not in the realm of discussion. So we start with our responsibility and that our culture has always had us represent ourselves strongly through our clothes. Our big clothes of the 90’s–we packing some shit for you. Our bright clothes back then–listen to us, we got some shit for you. But now, feminine clothes on men? That goes perfect with a rap pop mentality where you get all the girls doing everything that men don’t do. Men don’t hate women and get their adoration. They throw bills at them and get the wifey material ones to ruin for a moment. They get degrees in college and work fiercely in their political networking but give you anti-work verses of creamy puff wavy and snare coffined tracks. All to be interrupted by pretty hiccups as they vomit the platinum the white/western/americanized/capital loving/anti-Black agent forces with his affirmative assimilating pats on the back. So what disgusting arrogance is Jamar not to make note of when they make a “career” out of this.
It’s always media that further allows this. Words as “relevant” or being a “hater” were first applied with fortified pro-arguments by rap journalists that interview and phoney poly with the next 15 minute fame holder. They know that individual won’t last but they can make the phoney premise last by making everyone of a certain variety of bullshit relevant. They can dismiss the innovative ideas and the insightful commentary of great work as hating. And so Jamar has some journalists (or devilish ethnographists as Michael Muhammad Knight, a unique Snake Alike who goes from bad scholarship of the Nation of God and Earth to inflammatory pause-responses on the same MC, Jamar, who promoted Knight’s work by early on including excerpts of Knight’s grafted book in the liner notes of his strong 5% solo album) I used to respect trying to find his personal hypocrisy (i.e. Didn’t you wear some questionable clothes when you were a kid?) as if the entire career presented by Jamar and Brand Nubian alone isn’t real enough. In this quest to cover music unbiased, Rap music journalism becomes purely westernized in a clever and subtle cover of patronizing observational commentary that goes unnoticed on technicality but is filled with undercover alliances and preferences preserved. As a writer, part of my Hip Hop career is as a journalist, and all of that career has been advocating true creativity and promoting the best of it. In that, the dynamic works of non-didactic, yet fully insightful music is the most valid. And I won’t #halfafag to stay in any polluted industry or promote that which isn’t the best part, the babies.
And so idealistically hearted, we, The Gods, realistically teach the babies to be right and exact. Properly fitted pants on the boys and skirts on the girls. And knowledge of self for all the children.
Peace, Sunez Allah
Sunset Style:
The Next Element of Hip Hop
By Sunez
Overview:
This book will be the first overt and uncontested display of the newly proposed element in Hip Hop culture, for official consideration, The Writer. The basic 4 elements of Hip Hop culture, DJing, MCing, Graffiti and B-boying (Breaking) eventually gave rise to the journalistic efforts by the immediate inner city audiences of color that began to question, explain and analyze this phenomenon. As Hip Hop journalism became the most powerful and popular force of music coverage, the writer immersed in the culture, became more than an impartial reporter.
The framework of the book is a cleverly constructed autobiography of Hip Hop writer, Sunez (aka Sunez Allah aka Edward Sunez Rodriguez), detailing his career in the journalistic industry from his beginnings as the author of the Sunset Style column. “Rodriguez was for several years a regular contributor to the CUNY Baruch College newspaper, The Ticker. His often controversial column, Sunset Style, is a “hip hop editorial” named after Rodriguez’ working class and heavily Puerto Rican Sunset Park neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York.”- Raquel Rivera, New York Ricans From the Hip Hop Zone; Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. From that column it continues through his career spanning stints as a freelance writer, online editor and editor at numerous publications including Vibe, XXL and The Source then to his self published street and online journals, Our SWords and Lavoe Revolt (www.lavoerevolt.blogspot.com). Sunez reveals the evolution of his reality as the Next Element by his life experience that segue into displays of the journalistic skill, refined musical commentary and creative works that make the Hip Hop writer. Essentially, the Hip Hop Writer is a Hip Hop element as a chronicler of the music and culture as well as a newly recognized creative force of the culture.
Sunset Style is the start of a revolution of recognition for the great Hip Hop writers who have contributed to the music and culture as journalists, music analysts, critics and as creative writers. It is the defining testament of a 18 year Hip Hop writing career that makes Sunez the Next Element of Hip Hop: The Writer.