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Still thinking about Fat Joe and the Elephant in the Room.  I know I’m the problem.

As I “plowed the field” this morning, this “rap song” started to formulate in my mind…

Blame it on the Thistle!
Blame it on the Thorn!
Blame it all on God, for the day I was born!

Blame it on the Soil!
Blame it on the Plow!
Blame it on the Sweat drippin from my brow!

Blame it on the Sunshine!
Blame it on the Rain!
Blame it on Anything that caused my pain!

Blame it on the Christians!
Blame it on the Jews!
Blame it on the Pagans with strange Tatoos!

Blame it on the Pilgrims!
Blame it on the Brits!
Blame it on the Indian, if the moccasin fits!

Blame it on the Cotton!
Blame it on the Hoe!
Blame it on Pharaoh who won’t let me go!

Blame it on the Railroad!
Blame it on the War!
Blame it on my Neighbor who lives next door!

Blame it on the Textbooks!
Blame it on the Schools!
Blame it on the Teachers - educatin fools!

Blame it on the Hip Hop!
Blame it on the Blues!
Blame it on the Rap Stars, going for a cruise!

Blame it on the Drug Deals!
Blame it on the Whore!
Blame it on the Gangster who robbed the liquor store!

Blame it on the Lawyer!
Blame it on the Judge!
Blame it on the News Man who blames it all on Drudge!

Blame it all on Wall Street!
Blame it on the FED!
Blame it on the Bankers - that we have no bread!

Blame it on the Movies!
Blame it all on Guns!
Blame it all on Hollywood hot crossed buns!

Blame it on the Muslims!
Blame it on the Pope!
Blame it on my Neighbor kids smoking dope!

Blame it on the Woman!
Blame it on the Snake!
Blame it all on Anything but my mistake!

Tags: anger, blame, hip hop, poetry, problem, rap, sin

I’ve been thinking a lot about Fat Joe, and his angry music. I think I know why he’s angry and I think I’m part of the problem. Bono said “Lament is the outcry of the overwhelmed.” I wouldn’t give you 50 Cents for Fat Joe’s lyrics, but I do want to talk about the Elephant in the Room.

There is this huge problem… the elephant in the room… that no one wants to talk about.

The problem is the same, ever since my father broke fellowship with his Father. He blamed it on his wife, and she blamed it on the snake, but as they left the garden that day, my father knew deep in his heart that he was the problem.

I am the problem.

It was a very hot day to be working the plow. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, he cursed the thistles and thorns, but knew in his heart, that he was the problem.

I am the problem. Don Miller said that on page 20 of Blue Like Jazz. How could Don know that I’m the problem, when he doesn’t even know me? It’s like God must have told him that I was the problem.

Sometimes I worry about what people think if I admit that “I’m the problem”. However, when I admit that I’m the problem, part of the problem is solved.

People think what they want to think. People believe what they want to believe. People follow rap stars like 50 Cent, or Fat Joe because they like the message, or somehow the message is helping to them to understand the chaos of the cosmos.

I discovered another thing in Blue Like Jazz — while reading on my Friday morning bus ride:

“People hardly care what you believe, as long as you believe something. If you are passionate about something, people will follow you because they think you know something they don’t, some clue to the meaning of the universe… If a rapper is passionately rapping about how great his rap is, his passion is pointed to nothing. He isn’t helping anything. His beliefs are self serving and shallow. If a rapper, however, is rapping about his community, about oppression and injustice, then he is passionate about a message, something outside himself.”

Tags: anger, blame, hip hop, oppression, problem, rap, sin, social injustice

Yesterday afternoon, it was cold and blustery by the river in downtown Detroit. Really cold and windy for the middle of May. The kind of cold that bites through your clothes and chills your bones. But things were hopping as I walked down Beubian St. on the way to catch the Smart bus home. Some people had put up posters everywhere for Fat Joe. Every pole had a sign for Fat Joe. Some poles had 3 signs proclaiming FAT JOE. As I walked past the Old Green Bar there were dozens of posters for Fat Joe. “I Won’t Tell Fat Joe there’s an Elephant in the Room”. In front of St. Andrews Hall (the indie music place) there were people all looking at the posters for Fat Joe and talking about Fat Joe coming to town.

Who is Fat Joe and why is he coming to Detroit? A bro with a big smile, colorful tee shirt and better dread-locks than Jimmy Hendrix, said that Fat Joe is some kind of hip-hop rap guy from the Bronx. Yep, it looks like Gangsta Rap at it’s finest (or baddest) …

Wikipedia’s got the skinny on Fat Joe:

Fat Joe’s album The Elephant in the Room was distributed by Imperial Records, a division of Capitol Records and Terror Squad Entertainment, and released on March 11, 2008; its lead single was “I Won’t Tell” featuring singer J. Holiday. The album debuted at the sixth position on the Billboard Hot 100.

Fat Joe got in a fight with Papoose in North Carolina recently, and 50 Cent says Fat Joe’s career is already dead. So Fat Joe is coming to Detroit … and I just hope nobody gets hurt.

In June 2007, the Reverend Michael Pfleger targeted Fat Joe as among several rappers he believed promoted misogyny in his billboard campaign “Stop Listening to Trash”.

There is a lot of angry music in Detroit. On the bus ride home, one guy was really angry about the price of gas being $3.69. [Note: It went up to $3.89 two days later.] Then he started yelling: “Did Bush find the weapons of mass destruction yet?” Another guy was talking about the recent Police brutality (allegations) in Philly and said, it was so bad.. made Rodney King look like a walk in the park, compared to that. If things are bad in the City of Brotherly Love (Philly)… must be even worse in Detroit… someone else started complaining about Kwame…

Then the man who was talking the loudest said “I wish God would come back”. “Really! I hope God comes back to stop all this bull-sh__ [injustice]“. “I hope God comes back soon.” Another black gentleman, more soft-spoken (and not as angry) said he “hoped God did not come back too soon, because some people are not ready yet.” That made me think of what my friend Ralph (the preacher) said: “God is patient in His Holy Anger against corruption, injustice, oppression, sin and wickedness. God is patient and slow to anger. God is not willing that any should perish.”

When God comes back to town… he will not come into town like Fat Joe. It will be be a lot worse, but a lot better… all at the same time.

I listened to the conversations and tried to understand what makes people angry. The bus stopped a few times. A few people got off the bus, and others got on. The bus grew quieter. While a few people drifted off to sleep, I read another chapter in Blue Like Jazz.

Tags: anger, hip hop, music, rap