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By MICHAEL ZITZ
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Links:
• Crime Mob Web site
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Earl Patrick McNeese, better known to Fredericksburg-area hip-hop fans as Praverb the Wyse, winced when he read the news about the fatal stabbing of Courtland High School junior Baron "Deuce" Braswell II.
First, McNeese, a 23-year-old Stafford County resident, felt some of the pain experienced by the victim's family--and by the families of the six teens charged in the crime.
Then the hip-hop artist grieved for the damage done to the image of a genre he's been trying to help liberate from the chains of a "bad boy" image.
"Rap music already has a bad stigma and this incident adds more fuel to the fire," McNeese said.
Like many others, he read news reports that the stabbing took place while "Knuck if You Buck," a song popularized by the Crime Mob rap group, was playing at a Four-Mile Fork motel party. Crime Mob is made up of teens who were members of an Atlanta gang. The lyrics in the 2004 song make references to fighting at a party.
The song is "crunk music," meaning "crazy drunk," and incites behavior similar to moshing and slam dancing, he said.
Crunk, a bass-heavy type of rap music with risque lyrics, is hot right now and getting a lot of radio play on hip-hop stations.
Turn the radio dial to any hip-hop station and crunk is there. Drive past the mall and it may be blasting from passing car radio speakers.
The genre originated in Memphis with the group Three 6 Mafia, but Atlanta has taken most of the credit with artists such as Lil' Jon and OutKast.
McNeese wasn't at the motel party, but says he can guess what happened during what he calls "a sad incident, indeed."
"Did the song spark the incident?" he said rhetorically. "In my opinion, yes. The song was intended to liven the party up--and it did, to an extent where someone got killed."
"I just hope this incident draws people together, and it teaches teens that loyalty to your school or neighborhood is cool, but at the same time extreme loyalty can result in tragedy," McNeese said.
Lonnie B, a DJ, recording artist and hip-hop icon in the Richmond area, has different ideas.
"You can't blame the music for somebody's actions," Lonnie B said. "If people are that ignorant and weak-minded, the problem is much bigger than the music."
But he also said, "It's more likely to happen when you play crunk music, but it can happen to any type of music."
He said: "Hip-hop is not music, it's a lifestyle. Hip-hop is the way you talk, the way you dress, the way you talk or slang. Rap is the words, the music. Crunk is a sound."
Paul Johnson, a spokesman for WYSK, a youth-oriented Fredericksburg radio station owned by The Free Lance-Star that includes some hip-hop music on its playlist, defended the genre.
Starting with Elvis Presley wriggling his hips to rock 'n' roll in the '50s, Johnson said, "There's always been a certain segment of the population that has thought a certain type of music was dangerous."
"Our parents thought Elvis was dangerous--not that he was going to incite violence, but that he was going to corrupt the youth of America," he said.
Johnson, 44, argued that music doesn't set the tone for any era.
"Music doesn't affect the times, it reflects the times," he said.
The King George County resident said protest songs of the '60s weren't a call for young people to take to the streets, but a reflection that it was already happening.
Hip-hop artists, Johnson said: "Write about what they see and where they live. And if what they see and where they live is violent, they write about violence. But I don't think any song is creating a violent culture."
He said any song on WYSK's playlist that might be interpreted as a call to violence "is meant by the artist not to be a call to action, but rather a call to awareness."
Experts contacted for this story said the most sensationalized sub-genres of hip-hop, like gangsta rap and "crunk music" are really only sideshows. They noted that gangsta rap had its origins in white culture with movies like "The Godfather" and "Scarface."
They point out that perhaps the biggest mainstream hip-hop act of today, the Black Eyed Peas, doesn't focus on violence or crime, but life in general.
An authority on youth violence at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg said violence in pop culture doesn't cause otherwise healthy, well-balanced children to commit crimes.
Tom Moeller, a UMW psychology professor and author of the 2001 book "Youth Violence and Aggression," said he asked his students this week what the song "Knuck if You Buck" was about.
He said his students, even the ones who are rap fans, "said you can't understand the lyrics."
Moeller said a research project done by a student at UMW two years ago reached the same conclusion: Most fans listening to "music that is supposed to incite violence" don't understand what is being said in the lyrics and don't bother to find out.
Speaking generally, Moeller said that most young people's brains haven't developed to a point that they have good impulsive behavior control.
But he said he doesn't believe that things like violent video games, violent movies and TV shows and gangsta rap can move kids to violence unless other factors are involved.
What happened at the Spotsylvania County party, he said, was probably the result of the tragic confluence of dozens and dozens of internal and external factors and influences, not merely a rap song setting kids off.
Reed Baker, CEO of Sophist Productions LLC, a record label in New York, said "Hip-hop doesn't kill people. People kill people."
"It wasn't Crime Mob that brought the knife into the party," Baker said. "It just happened to be playing."
He concluded, "Violence has been around forever, since Cain and Abel."
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To reach MICHAEL ZITZ:
Email: mikez@freelancestar.com