Dyson to Answer Cosby’s Rap Album

“There’s nothing worse than a comedian that’s trying to be serious on a certain level. That could be hazardous to your career. And to your health,” Michael Eric Dyson, told AllHipHop.com in reference to Bill Cosby who says that he is going to record a hip hop album. Dyson has already stated that he plans to counteract with his own hip hop album if this rumor turns out to be true.

Dyson, one of the coolest social commentators that you’ll ever em, effin’ know, has been one of the most openly vocal critics of Bill Cosby’s stand against the hip hop generation, publishing “Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?” in 2006 in response to Cosby’s ultra conservative tirade at an NAACP Convention in which Cosby basically ridiculed and belittled lower class black Americans. To skim over the speech go here: http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/billcosbypoundcakespeech.htm. (I personally like the part where he says “You can’t keep relying on God, God is tired of you.”)  

Dyson considers Cosby’s rants at the event, and since then to be an “assualt on the black poor.”      

In response to criticism of hip hop in general, Dyson published “Know What I Mean?” which features an afterword by Nas and a foreward by Jay Z who states: “At this point it might seem hollow to repeat what has been widely said about Michael Eric Dyson: this gifted man is the “hip hop intellectual,” a world-class scholar, and the most brilliant interpreter of hip hop culture we have. But plain and simple that is what he is. He has shown those doubters and critics that hip hop is a vital arts movement created by young working-class men and women of color. Yes, our rhymes can contain violence and hatred. Yes, our songs can detail the drug business and our choruses can bounce with lustful intent. However, those things did not spring from inferior imaginations or deficient morals; these things came from our lives. They came from America.”

Dyson’s resume goes on to include a host of television and radio show appearances, and a laundry lists of book titles in which Dyson comments on every social issued plauging African Americans from hip hop to Hurricane Katrina, to race relations in America. His literary accomplishments also include:  ”Holler If You Hear Me: Searching for Tupac,” “Open Mike,” “Why I Love Black Women,” “Mercy, Mercy Me: The Art, Loves, and Demons of Marvin Gaye,” “Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster,” “Debating Race,” and his newest release “April 6, 1968: Martin Luther King’s Death and How it Changed America.”  

Dyson in action, wait for the Jay Z quote:

If you don’t know about Dyson you should pick up one of his books. He’s real as hell. There’s no arguing with this dude, he’ll rip you up to shreds and as Jay Z stated above he’s one of the best defenses the hip hop generation has against all the people who discredit the relevance of the genre. His books have definitely inspired a lot of though in me and has provided me with an abundance of ammunition when I’ve somehow found myself defending the hip hop generation in an office where I’m the youngest person by at least 10 years.

 For more: www.MichaelEricDyson.com