Nas Fueling the Fire with Controversial Album Title

By: Simone Pringle
11/19/07
The Hilltop: The Student Voice of Howard Since 1924

The NAACP buried it, a whole generation revived it, changed the connotation and made it their own. While the “N” word has been a sensitive topic for many years, it’s never been more controversial than it is now.

Hip-hop artist Nas has chosen it for the title of his latest album.

In an interview with MTV News, Nas said that he wanted to use his influence to lessen the impact of the term. He said, “No disrespect to none of them who were part of the civil rights movement, but some of my [explicit] in the streets don’t know who [civil rights activist] Medgar Evers was.”

History professor Selwyn Carrington said, “I don’t think [his album] should be representative of African-American thought. We have the right to subscribe to his usage of the word or not. We also don’t have to buy his album.”

Carrington also said, “If African Americans are comfortable with his usage, if they’re comfortable with his using it as a money maker, they should be comfortable when the word is used against them. Why would he name the album that is he wasn’t trying to [sell albums and] make money?”

Sophomore psychology major Michael Leak said, “If someone outside of the black community [said it] I guess it could be considered offensive but not to me, especially if it’s not used in the degrading way that it was used pre-Civil Rights movement.”

Leak said he does use the “N” word and doesn’t mind Nas decision in naming his album.

“I believe Nas has a valid point in his reasoning [but] we changed the ending, [from ‘er’ to ‘a’] and amongst ourselves we flipped it, twisted it and spun it to mean something that is not necessarily positive but definitely not negative.”

Author of “The New H.N.I.C.: The Death of Civil Rights and the Reign of Hip-Hop,” Todd Boyd said in a National Public Radio interview, “I think what black power did and what hip-hop would pick up on later, was [that we need to] move away from the sort of passive sense of suffering, ‘We shall overcome.’ Hip-hop is much more active, much more aggressive, much more militant.”

Civil rights activists such as Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton have it made a personal crusade to “clean up” hip-hop lyrics. In compliance, hip-hop artist Chamillionaire told AllHipHop.com in an April interview that he decided not to curse on his then upcoming album, “Ultimate Victory.”

Despite artists like Chamillionaire promising to clean up their act, the term maintained its popularity in the genre, being used by countless artists such as Nelly, Too Short, Kanye West, T.I., Plies and T-Pain.

Each has taken it and spun it their own way. Late hip-hop icon Tupac Shakur transformed the “N” word into an acronym that stands for, “Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.”

Carrington disagrees that a simple suffix switch can change a word’s meaning or that the meaning can be transformed at all.

“The word can’t be turned into a positive term, irrespective of how you spell it. Spelling it with an ‘a’ or ‘er’ doesn’t change the connotation. We should begin to realize that’s it’s not what we should use. It’s much more commonly used today than it used to be,” he said.

Carrington doesn’t understand why younger generations would want to use the word.

“I was brought up in the Caribbean. [The ‘N’ word] is not a word we used. We didn’t allow it to be used toward us, either. African Americans are comfortable with calling each other this derogatory term. No other group identifies themselves by the first letter of a derogatory term. This word should be objectionable.”

Sophomore biology major Robert Street said, “As an American, I believe in my freedom of speech. Therefore, I also feel that Nas, the artist, doesn’t need to be justified or validated by anyone for his interpretation and presentation of his individual ideology.”

Street understands Nas’ reasons, but also felt that blacks should not call it the “N” word.

He said, “In a parallel word struggle, we will find that the Jews will never call the ’swastika’ the ‘S’ word.”

“However, in my confusion, I do understand the main goal of the frequent negative publicity is to justify the eventual censorship of rap, the only form of ‘art’ that has ever been considered for censorship,” Street said.

“The N word was meant for verbal and mental degradation of black people. I think that black people should be aware about the history of the word,” said senior political science major Phillip Newman.

Newman also said, “I think the reason Nas [named] the album ‘Nigger‘ is because he knows that racism is still around.”

Carrington said the word is not the focus. “A word does not control racism. [Racism] is the whole nature, the whole thought.”

Source: The Hilltop Online