The ghetto consists of segregated housing units which lack strong institutions (Black 206). Formal organizations like churches, businesses, and schools make it more difficult for antisocial activities to thrive. Once such entities are uprooted, the sense of connectedness that makes other American neighborhoods effective is eliminated.
Poor social networks in these communities place responsibility for the care of children on lone parents, who are too preoccupied to carry out this role effectively. Unlike other effective communities, where responsibility for the care of children is shared in the network, this pattern is missing in black ghettos.
Nas represents one of the lone voices in such a community. He tries to school this boy on the realities of life. He advises him to ‘rise above the madness,’ among other things. In a society that lacks external controls, even a marijuana-smoking mentor like Nas is a welcome intervention.
In the song “One Love” as well as the movie “Belly,” twelve-year-old Shorty complements Nas on his style. Nas responds by giving him some gold chains that he could sell if he wanted. When one analyses how these two individuals are dressed, one notes the distinctive style of the black urban poor. Even how the two speakers is synonymous to this culture, they are both slow and deliberate in their speech. The two greet each other in an unusual manner and have a cool demeanor about them.
Majors and Billson (6) explain that the cool pose is a coping mechanism for several poor African Americans. They tend to appear fearless, emotionless, and in control. This is an attempt to mask the insecurities of their life. Many of them have to contend with the realities of marginalization.
Not only is their self-worth damaged, but they are also engaged by their hopeless circumstances. Maintaining a cool façade allows them to cover these inner struggles and thus cope with their environment. Shorty found inspiration from Nas and other rappers like him whose sense of style is cool. In this regard, he becomes a positive influence on the boy’s life by providing him with a coping strategy for his wretched reality.
Shorty is twelve, but he already smokes marijuana, sells crack cocaine, and carries a gun with him. These deviant circumstances are appalling but quite usual in black neighborhoods. Merton’s theory on Anomie best explains why Shorty was predisposed to so much negativity. When people share society’s goals of wealth acquisition but lack the means to achieve them, then they are predisposed to deviant means to meet those goals.
Black males want to enjoy material wealth, but economic, social and political barriers prevent them from doing so; they are left with violence as their only means of reaching these goals (Majors and Billson 21). One must not blame black men like Nas for initiating young ones like Shorty into the culture of violence. It is structural factors around him that pushed the boy into such a pathway. Nas was getting him to see the bigger picture by asking him not to get sucked into it.
Perhaps one of the most profound elements of the “One Love” song and the corresponding scene in Belly is its articulation of Black people’s problems. Forman and Neal (55), through their guest artist bam, explain that hip-hop makes people around the world learn about the negative and positive aspects of their lives. Nas is thus a black people’s ambassador.
Through such conscious music, he can reach out to other young black men like Shorty or to people in authority who can do something about their situation. Hip hop is about the regular lives of black folks (Toop 14), (Strode and Wood 110) & (George 49). Therefore, the social deprivation, violence, and urban decay in this rap song are a manifestation of what goes in this marginalized community.
Works Cited
Black, Albert. The Sociology and History of African Americans. Washington: University of Washington Press, 2000. Print.
Forman, Murray & Mark Anthony Neal. That’s The Joint: The Hiphop Studies Reader. NY: Routledge, 2001. Print.
George, Nelson. And It Don’t Stop: The Best American Hip Hop Journalism Of The Past 25 Years. New York: Faber and Faber Inc., 1985. Print.
Majors, Richard & Janet Billson. Cool Pose: The Dilemmas Of Black Manhood In America. NY: Simon and Schuster, 1992. Print.
Strode, Tim & Tim Wood. The Hiphop Reader: Gender Construction in Hiphop. NY: Longman, 2007. Print.
Toop, David. Rap Attack: African Rap to Global Hiphop. NY: Serpent’s tail, 1999. Print.