U Can’t Touch These: Rappers Urged to Tone Down Slang
Posted by Kevin Forest Moreau
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Mere days after a hip-hop advocacy group headed by Russell Simmons requested that record labels, radio and television delete three commonly used terms from broadcasts of rap performances, a similar organization has come forward to ask the hip-hop community to refrain from using offensive terms that have graduated into the mainstream.
“It’s high time that we in the rap and hip-hop scenes send a clear message to the world, and stop using words that demean us as a community,” rap artist Hoodie, spokesman for the Coalition of Rappers Against the Appropriation of Colloquialisms by Caucasians (CRACC), said at a press conference on Thursday. “I’m talking about terms like ‘bling-bling,’ ‘off the chain,’ ‘gettin’ jiggy wit’ it,’ and ‘U can’t touch this,’” he said.
The press event was held on April 26, one day before the release of the comedy “Kickin’ It Old Skool,” which Hoodie, of the popular multiplatinum group Drugg Dealaz, cited as a prime example of the kind of corrosive effect such words have on the larger community. “When a phrase like ‘kickin’ it old-school’ falls into the wrong hands and is used as the basis of a movie starring Jamie Kennedy, we can no longer stand back and claim that the words we use have no negative effects on society as a whole,” Hoodie said.
“When Trace Adkins releases a song called ‘Honky-Tonk Badonkadonk,’ it degrades us all, big-bootied and small-bootied alike. When suburban white kids greet each other with ‘What’s shizzle, mah nizzle,’ we are all to blame,” he continued.
Hoodie went on to enumerate a list of the offensive terms, which also included “ill,” “cheddar,” “in the house,” “fo’ sheezy,” ”hooptie,” “on the down-low” and “crunk.”