Hip-hop-cracy testimony

Personal story of past rapping shows inconsistencies in genre

By DAVID CARNAHAN, Opinions Writer

Published: November 14, 2007

Following a private concert from Johnny Cash, "Brady Bunch" mom Florence Henderson announced the semi-finalists for 1995's International Society of Poets' Awards. "David Carnahan," she read. I was 11 years old when I flew to Washington D.C. to be recognized for a poem I wrote, titled "The King."

In addition to my fondness for poetry, I played the cello for nearly a decade. Raymond Davis, former Principal Cellist of the Seattle Symphony, would chew on a cigar while I tore through Vivaldi sonatas. He would then interrupt me, yelling out mistakes I made for $100 an hour. Ultimately, I made it into the Seattle Youth Symphony.

My roots in poetry and music made song-making inevitable for me. Even though it might have been feasible, singing lyrics while playing the cello seemed awkward. Rap music was on the rise, though, and people like me were escalating its popularity by supporting it. I realized that this art form would be the best way to accommodate my interests in both poetry and music. So, I abandoned poetry and the cello to write "rhymes" and make "beats."

I had always believed in God and Jesus, and my music hinted at my personal faith. At the time that I started recording rap music, however, I was not exactly walking the "straight and narrow," and this was vividly portrayed through my songs.

I was an avid listener of secular rap at this time as well. I was enticed and lyrically influenced by the violent, misogynistic and drug-endorsing content of popular rap artists' recordings. They displayed through their music a sensitive and conscious side in addition to their questionable lyrics that allowed me to justify my own contradictory musical pursuits. If these multi-million-dollar moguls were doing it, why couldn't I?

Now when I look at rap music, I see contradictions and hypocrisies that are both unsettling and disturbing. However, when I reflect on my own journey in music, I see how easy such contradictions are to make and how I personally committed them in my past musical pursuits.

I used to rap about the importance of God's love in my life and then rant about a violent quest on my next track. I would elaborate on God's forgiveness and then lyrically tear down my biological father for being absent in my life.

Moreover, I would seek sympathy by addressing the drug and alcohol struggles in my life but then glorify being "high" and intoxicated. I even wrote a song that acknowledged my single mother as an "independent woman," while objectifying women throughout the rest of my work.

Although such conflicts in the rap genre were represented in my own music, I was always intrigued at how such a creative art form could be used so negatively. From East to West Coast rap and everything in between, rap artists can empathize with dark thoughts and feelings, as well as the more positive aspects of life.

For example, one of my previously admired hardcore rappers, DMX, prays on his record, "Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood," and then also boasts of necrophilia. Some might ask, how could DMX represent the sanctity of prayer and having sex with dead people within an album of 16 songs?

Likewise, Eminem, another one of my previous favorite artists, constantly rapped such contradictions. On his 2000 release, "Marshall Mathers LP," Eminem suggests to a crazed fan, "Stan," that he should treat his girlfriend better. Thirteen songs later, he audibly chokes his own girlfriend to death in a jealous rage in the song called "Kim."

Eminem's advice to "Stan" and his experiences of dealing with relationship problems allowed me to rationalize my own conflicting views.

These contrasts in rap music allowed me, and continue to allow others, the leverage to uphold duplicities in my own life. Personally, I could relate to the anger and then softer portrayals of faith in rap songs.

However, my flagrant two-facedness would not last.

On May 2, 2005, I checked myself into a drug rehabilitation center. I realized that I had unresolved issues in my life that separated me from my roots in God and that inflamed my inconsistencies in music. Looking back, I don't have a single regret, because the trials I faced molded me into the artist I strive to be today.

Through my own experiences with creating and listening to rap music, I acknowledge that the genre, with the help of my own past music, is riddled with hypocrisy. However, God meets everyone where they are at in each stage of life, like he did with me. To simply denounce rap artists as hypocritical will only continue to ignite the flames for defensiveness and misunderstanding. The issue is much more complex and deserves careful discernment from each listener. Hopefully, every individual, artist or listener, will be changed by God when he deems that it is the right time.

In the course of realizing my own hypocrisy, I have moved away from contradictions in my own music and life in an attempt to practice what I preach. I will continue to make rap music but will try to always be guided by the light of my faith in Jesus Christ.

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