Idiots in Entertainment: Alicia Keys

There are reasons why we don't like to hear our entertainers spout off about their personal lives or what they really think. Because they're idiots (like Clay Aiken).

Beautiful, talented Alicia Keys opened her mouth to Blender Magazine and revealed a side of her self I really, honestly wish she'd've kept secret.

For example:

"'Gangsta rap' was a ploy to convince black people to kill each other. 'Gangsta rap' didn't exist."

I'm sure that's right.

Angry black men like Ice Cube writing songs for N.W.A. (like F--- the Police) about the things he saw living on the streets of Los Angeles ... ? That didn't happen.

Nope.

It was Trent Lott and Teddy Kennedy and Newt Gingrich and Al Gore hanging out in the basement of the Capitol bustin' rhymes and writin' up songs for Dr. Dre and Ice-T to go out and recite so that they could unwittingly fool them into inciting violence in the black community.

Heck, "G Dub" and "Big Dicky C" (that's what we those of us from the street call George W. Bush and Dick Cheney) are in the West Wing working up 50 Cent's next album right now.

Beyond that, she speaks truth to the fact that the whole east coast and west coast rap war that caused the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur. What's she say?

"[That was carried out] by the government and the media to stop another great black leader from existing."

No doubt.

I mean, I'm clearly not a black man but I know even I was having trouble choosing between which of those two was going to be the next 'great black leader'.

Now, I know most of my readers are typical white people who don't understand the plight of our African American neighbors, so let's take a moment to delve into the lyrics of Tupac's 'Ballad of a Dead Soulja':

The plan, to take command of the whole family
Though underhanded, to be the man it was planned
All my road dawgs, official mob niggaz love to act up
The first to bomb we rob niggaz
I can be, lost in my own mind
To be the boss only thought's grip on chrome nines
Niggaz get tossed up, war scars, battlefield memories
Swore I saw the devil in my empty glass of Hennesey
Talkin to a nigga on a tight leash
Screamin "Fuck the police," as I ride through the night streets
Lil' child runnin wild, toward his danger
What's the cause don't be alarmed death to all strangers
Maybe I'm a madman
A pistol grabbin nigga unleash the Sandman
Promisin merciless retaliation, nothin is colder
Close your eyes, hear the ballad of a dead soldier

Thug for Life I will be..
(this is the ballad of a dead soldier)
A life of crime I will lead..
(close your eyes, hear the ballad of a dead soldier)
If you play the game, you play to win..
(this is the ballad of a dead soldier)
It's a crazy world full of sin..
(close your eyes)

You look at those lyrics and you can't help but see a reflection of the eloquence and hope portrayed in Martin Luther King Jr.'s 'I have a Dream' speech.

I'll tell you something else, too. A lot of people in the 'hood -- and I'm sure Alicia's probably one of them -- think Eazy-E was injected with HIV at the request of the FBI to keep yet another 'great black leader' from emerging. Others say he just got around. But, you know, like eight of the hundreds of women he'd 'had relations' with are said to have tested negative, so the question remains.

Will Smith, who is from West Philadelphia (born and raised) should count himself lucky that a couple of guys, who were up to no good started making trouble in his neighborhood. He attested to the fact that he got in one little fight and his momma got scared and sent him to live with his auntie and uncle in Bel Air. The fact she was so concerned, and that his move meant he was on both the East and the West sides, may have saved his life.

Keys has also, apparently, been catching up on her reading, saying that she's now read several Black Panther autobiographies and now wears a gold AK-47 pendant around her neck "to symbolize strength, power and killing 'em dead."

Fo' shizzle. Represent, you little Irish / Italian / Scottish / Jamaican girl!