Friday, September 08, 2006

A bad combination

When I first heard that Ne-Yo and Chris Brown were coming to Charlotte, I encouraged my girl and another buddy of mine to let their teenage daughters attend the show.

Brown and Ne-Yo are the new young heartthrobs whose posters are plastered on the walls of thousands of teenage girls' bedrooms. They're the kind of artists who should be on the Scream Tour.

I was about to order tickets for my friend's kids when I started thinking about the supporting acts: Lil' Wayne, Dem Franchise Boyz and Juelz Santana.

I didn't order the tickets.

I like the rap acts on the tour, but they shouldn't be packaged with Brown and Ne-Yo. These rappers draw the gold-tooth, white T-shirt crowd. Too often they think women should be treated like the women in music videos - disrespectfully.


Let me see, teenage girls whose bodies are beginning to bud and whose hormones are on overdrive combined with amped grown men, some of whom will be drinking. And way too many of whom will be making inappropriate comments to women and girls.

It's a bad combination.

What do you think? Am I overreacting? Should I have let the girls go? Post your replies below.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

They gonna get hit on sooner or later anyway no matter the setting and the makeup of the guy(white tee,Hugo Boss suit). If their parents did their jobs it shouldn't matter they will mind their P's and Q's

Anonymous said...

You did the right thing.

Mainstream Rap/Hip Hop music should be altogther shunned. The fact that it's called 'music' seems secondary to many of the performers and fans. What seems to be most important is promoting a lifestyle centered around material possessions and money, violence, gang-related activity and unrelenting misogyny.

Are these the things you would want any child exposed to?? especially black children, who are encouraged to adopt this mentality that in effect has poisoned the youth of America and has kept so many young people from fufilling their potential.

Do performers like 50 Cent ever have any impact at all upon our culture that could be construed as positive???

If kids want to be exposed to hip hop music, there are plenty of great acts who don't "bring the bling", bands like Jurassic 5, The Roots, and to a lesser extent Outkast, have plenty to offer.

At the end of the day, thats what it should be about, the music.. Not Escalades, gold teeth, jewel-encrusted champagne flutes, "hoes", handguns,worshipping slain thugs as martyrs and heroes, or chrome-plated wheels.

Anonymous said...

I agree. O.K.,so I don't have kids, but that doesn't mean that I'm not concerned about the actions of the teenagers these days. On a daily basis I see young girls of all races get disrespected verbly and sometimes get physically groped by teenage boys. In my day (and I'm only 29) this wouldn't happen, simply because the boys would be too afraid of the negative consequences. Now, it seems that the girls think it's cute and the media says it's o.k. The majority of music videos these days show women enjoying the blatant disrespect. I don't care about the video "ladies," but I do care about how the young ladies who are just blossoming. Instead of complaining I've decided to make a positive difference with my own children, when I have them. Until then, I'm embarrassed by the young boys walking around calling themselves men. I've realize that every generation expresses themselves differently via music, fashion and language. I applaud that as an artist, but I don't support the treatment of these little girls who aren't yet confrontable in their new skin and their new skin tight jeans.

Anonymous said...

Tonya,

I totally agree with you. My little brother is 11 and he wanted to attend. I thought about buying tickets, but he is at an impressionable age and already thinks it's cool to be a hustler.

Needless to say, I didn't buy tickets either.

Wise decision

B.E. Wright
Take Back The Music

Anonymous said...

Tonya,

I totally agree with you. My little brother is 11 and he wanted to attend. I thought about buying tickets, but he is at an impressionable age and already thinks it's cool to be a hustler.

Needless to say, I didn't buy tickets either.

Wise decision

B.E. Wright
Take Back The Music