Comments on: Nike P-Rods, and Falling for the Okey-doke

By: Crack and Hip Hop Politically Underdeveloped Young People | Racialicious - the intersection of race and pop culture

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 15:00:49 +0000

[...] to be the street talking to the street. In commenting on the ways in which Nike used Cube’s “Today is a Good Day” for a skateboarding commercial he writes, It’s just another example of hip-hop’s transformation [...]

By: Word Up: Blueprint X and hip-hop’s case of Alzheimer’s « The Ashcan

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:15:14 +0000

[...] So maybe that’s all it is — we’ve caught feelings. Not over the culture as a whole, as we might have claimed in our KRS-One Knights of the Four Elements phase, but over our personal time in the spotlight; our paused screenshot in hip-hop’s voracious, incestuous, panoptic whirl of style and attitude. It’s not the death of hip-hop we’re crying over, it’s the lack of meaning Jay-Z is able to give to our lives. But who changed — Jay or me? Hip-hop or the general pop culture’s relationship with hip-hop? Rafi Kam looks at Ice Cube’s commercial for Nike and concludes that nostalgia is one hell of a drug. [Nike, P-Rods, and Falling for the Okey-Doke] [...]

By: @BBVBOX: recent guest-tweeted web video picks (boingboingvideo.com) | The World Matters

Sun, 23 Aug 2009 01:38:18 +0000

[...] Jesse Thorn: Some insightful insights on Ice Cube, skateboards, and a Nike ad from @rafikam: Link [...]

By: MR

MR — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:45:59 +0000

I don’t want to start a race debate, but that kid doesn’t really look “white” to me, except if we consider latinos “white” too. Plus, from what I get, this looks more like an East LA area he is skateboarding in. Now, East LA isn’t exactly that fancy and Paul grew up in the Valley, so he’s not exactly a Beverly Hills kid either.
The other issues you raise..I mean, it’s an ad and Nike wanted to sell a product and honestly, I never digged skateboarding, but I wanted to buy a skateboard after watching that.
It might be sad, I don’t know, but this is just reality, it’s just a great commercial, just as the Spike Lee MJ ads were great, or MJ and Bird doing Horse over McDonald’s.
The Sean Bell issue is a different thing to me…remember Hip Hop after Rodney King, remember Hip Hop after Sean Bell..that’s the true definition of selling out and that was the point Hip Hop kind of died. Or when you see the kids of rappers throwing ridiculous sweet-16 birthday parties on MTV…that’s actually really really sad.
But the above…well, they try to sell. Can we really blame them for making a/the perfect commercial? I can’t..I just keep watching it over and over again.

By: C.R.

C.R. — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 18:35:03 +0000

I enjoyed reading your article, but I can’t agree with that “The good old days …” nostalgia.

“Ice Cube in those days was a Race man and he made Race records”.
No, at THAT time, Ice Cube was a pop star and he made hit records.

Also, how about all those St. Ides commercials Ice Cube did? And that was even before the Predator came out.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ELxJfRamYUY

By: Eli

Eli — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 15:21:45 +0000

Lance Mountain also makes a cameo as one of the cops.

By: @BBVBOX: recent guest-tweeted web video picks (boingboingvideo.com) | BLOGCHINA

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 05:02:45 +0000

[...] Jesse Thorn: Some insightful insights on Ice Cube, skateboards, and a Nike ad from @rafikam: Link [...]

By: gordon gartrelle

gordon gartrelle — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 10:36:04 +0000

Great piece.

By: Jordi

Jordi — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 04:39:13 +0000

I love this article. I agree 100%. Ice Cube’s The Predator was the first CD I owned. I got it after I saw The Predator video. As a suburban white teenager that album had a very powerful voice. What is lost in the shuffle that you forgot to mention was that the song prematurely ends and goes into the song about the riots (Tear This MF’er Up). So Cube’s message wasn’t all positive. Not in the least bit.
Side note: last week I went down to Clarksdale MS, birthplace of the blues. There I was told that most people want to forget about the blues because the “visions are too dark and remind people of a history they would rather forget”. I would also argue that the raw passion of the blues is unable to be effectively manipulated. Unlike hip-hop.

By: Rockabye

Rockabye — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:26:11 +0000

The inconvenient truth is that CLASS is at the center of Hip-Hop. Not race. But you have to be really into Hip-Hop to understand that. If you are a huge fan of rap music this fact will fly over your head all of the time.

I see you. I’d argue that the essential conflict that birthed much of hip-hop (unless we’re counting Sugarhill co-opting Disco) is urban vs. suburban. Hip-hop in the early and mid-’80s was almost fully a product of its environment, an expression of the frustration with the white, upper- and middle-class culture that was out of reach and foreign to the principal actors of hip-hop in New York, L.A., and the other big cities. It’s not hard to find someone saying hip-hop grew because disco sucked.

And yes, it’s an insidious extension of the black = poor narrative to say that hip-hop produces essentially struggle music from poor black Americans. Hip-hop’s musical component is usually either poor people music or party people music; sometimes, it’s both, but that seems increasingly lost going forward.

The other cultural aspects being less lucrative, they aren’t as converted. You know?