Lecrae Calls The Hip Hop Culture on the Carpet

With everything that is going on in Ferguson, Missouri, tensions have been high all over the country. Today, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder arrived in Ferguson after 12 days of protests and violence.

Christian rapper, Lecrae, spoke out in an open tweet to the hip hop nation asking a valid question and the response has been intense. He tweeted, "Dear Hip Hop, we can't scream "murder, misogyny, lawlessness" in our music & then turn around and ask for equality & justice."

Thus far, the post has been retweeted 11,941 times and favorited 10,615 times. The responses are where it gets even more interesting ...

Some thought he was very wrong and said things like -

• "this is the equivalent of blaming the oppressed instead of attacking what oppresses them." - Racquel Gill
• "Tweets like this proves that black reformed men, and rappers, are often called uncle toms and live in a theological plantation"- Renaissance Mir
• "Not taking shots brother but if a secular artist were able to help bring justice would we turn him away because of what he promotes?" - Druzu
• "nor will it have a hand in stopping it as long as its leaders deny their influence." - Channing Miskel
• "you act as if respectability will grant us the things we desire as a people. We have to be nice to be treated as human beings?" - Forreal Gibran

Others thought he was right on the money and responded with comments like -

• "I talk about this all the time! Cats are perpetuating stereotypes and influencing apathy towards civility!" - Ohmega Watts
• "This is beautiful. It can't circulate enough." - Jim Scherretz
• "words that many artists pump out of the studios and into the headphones of our youth who idolize them translate into action" - Dwight Smith
• "shooters to off some other black people over cocaine. very hard 2 defend that. gotta take responsibility for what we promote" - nobigdyl
• "members of the industry from every race are guilty. not passing blame, just calling #hiphop to a higher standard" - Dwight Smith

I was going to share some of hte lyrics from some of the top rap songs listed on Billboard to see if Lecrae was right. The fact that many of them would be more )#*&(*% than actual words (thus not worth printing) says that yes - Lecrae is spot on!