Rating:
  Release Date: September 13, 2005
  Website: Little Brother Website
  Label: Atlantic Records

A lot of drama surrounded Little Brother’s album release. First, you got the Source thing. Apparently, the Source actually does review some real hip-hop albums, and editor Joshua Ratcliffe wanted to give LB 4.5 mics. This was, according to recent Internet reports, until Benzino and Mays may have used the threat of editorial veto to force a reconsideration of a prior rating given to Benzino’s homie, Young Jeezy.

In other words, they may have requested that either the rating be dropped to a 4, or Ratcliffe reconsider the rating he or the review staff gave to Young Jeezy. (For those of you not familiar with the Source, this is not the first time their owners have been accused of compromising their journalistic integrity for the benefit of someone associated with the magazine) Although the magazine maintained the 4.5 mic rating upon publication, Ratcliffe resigned.

Then, you got the BET thing. About a week after the Source debacle, BET refused to air LB’s first video because it was, according to 9th Wonder, “too intelligent for the BET audience.” From what I can gather, the video poked fun at a handful of hip-hop stereotypes, including “gangsters” and “ballers,” which possibly represent the stereotypes most enforced by BET’s playlist. No wonder they banned it. And on top of all that, Little Brother’s album was titled “The Minstrel Show.”

A Modern Day Minstrel Show?
That hip-hop is a modern day minstrel show is far from a new idea. Those opposed to gangster or materialistic rap often claim that rappers are acting out negative black stereotypes to entertain white audiences in the same sense as a minstrel show. Others point to the increasing success of white rappers, and claim that white rappers are actually putting on blackface and imitating black culture in the same manner as a minstrel show. Little Brother seems to take more of the blame-corporate viewpoint, pointing out that the creators of hip-hop may not control the medium, determine what’s hot, or even affect who gets played on the radio, and question whether or not “our culture [is] repackaged and re-presented to us every bit as codified and restricted as the Minstrel shows.”

So are they correct? Is hip-hop a modern day minstrel show? I think it depends on how you look at it. True, there are rappers that act out negative black stereotypes at the request of their record companies. But there are also many that do not. Little Brother itself is a perfect example of a hip-hop group that is not part of what we would refer to as the “Hip-Hop Minstrel Show.” Ironically, LB’s “The Minstrel Show” offers dope beats and real rhymes as proof that hip-hop, or at least a part of it, is not a minstrel show.

True, there are white rappers who have adopted black youth culture. But how many of them are really acting out negative black stereotypes? Most underground white MCs, including Slug, Eyedea, Aesop Rock, Sage Francis and others, and even most mainstream white rappers, including Bubba Sparxx, Everlast, and the ever-loved Beastie Boys, do nothing to act upon the stereotypes of black youth culture.

And true, statistics do point to the conclusion that most of hip-hop on the corporate level is controlled by corporate forces that repackage hip-hop in a neat little one-dimensional box. Not much I know to say to that. But if LB was so strongly opposed to that, why did they sign with Atlantic Records, a big time corporate label that represents such “blackface rappers” as Kid Rock, P.O.D. and Paul Wall, and such “gangster rappers” as Juvenile, T.I. and Trick Daddy? There are thousands of underground labels putting out real music that LB could have signed with.

Or is it just a small percentage somehow chosen to represent all of hip-hop?
In my opinion, NO. Hip-hop is not a minstrel show, even if some rappers and record companies act as if it were. To view it as exclusively such means to restrict it to certain racial and social guidelines, all of which are too small to contain it. Hip-hop is bigger than race. It is bigger than class. It is bigger than social status or old-school views of the distinctions between people.

It confuses me that a group that at first appeared to be so loyal to the hip-hop underground, its philosophies and ways of life, can now turn around and criticize hip-hop as if they actually believe the media’s attempts to misrepresent it. Does gangster rap represent even a tenth of hip-hop music? How many rappers are really materialistic and bling bling? Who do you know other than Kanye that sports a backpack? Or is it just a small percentage that the media has chosen to represent all of hip-hop? From my perspective, the hip-hop stereotypes that were supposedly made fun of in LB’s banned video combine to represent a small minority of hip-hop fans, albeit those manipulated by the media. If you think otherwise, maybe you’re listening to the wrong artists.

Nonetheless, minus the title and a couple skits, the album did not really stick to the minstrel show theme. Instead, it gave yet another example of hip-hop that does not reinforce stereotypes, or advocate violence, or consume itself in materialism. In their own words, Little Brother made a record “about things the average brother or sister can relate to: the decisions between holding down a job or stepping out on faith in the hopes that you can support yourself doing something you love; trying to be a father to your child when a relationship sours; dealing with the changes other people go through when they see you get just a lil’ taste of success; the unpublicized and unglamorous aspects of making music.”

“The decisions between holding down a job or stepping out on faith in the hopes that you can support yourself doing something you love.”

Open my eyes to a new day, spread my wings
Taking shots of the Crown cause I’m going through things
Everybody got their hands out looking for green
Coattails getting heaving cause I’m living my dream
I’m trying to school these young niggas it ain’t all what it seems
I still struggle just like you, and I still hustle just like you
But it just so happens that Big Pooh is doing what he love to do

So I’mma tell ‘em how it went down, man
Doin’ shows for free goin’ outta town, man
The way I almost broke down and got a 9 to 5
Cause I had more press than soundscans
This is the price that I pay for this music
And every word that I write is a testament to it
And if I had to go back, I wouldn’t change a thing
Wouldn’t re-cut, re-edit, or change a frame
Cause it would not be fair, to turn my back on the struggle
When that exact same hustle got me here

“Trying to be a father to your child when a relationship sours.”

And that’s a man’s dilemma
Cause every man remembers
How his daddy and his uncles did it
Cause more than likely that’s they way they’re gonna do it
I know it sounds fucked up and most won’t admit it
But yo, I gotta face it cause I know I’m living through it
Cause when the party stops and niggas get old
And the chains and the cars and the houses get sold
And that other side of the bet gets cold
You don’t wanna be alone

I was looking at your photograph amazed at how I favor you
I remember being young, wanting to play with you
Cause you was a wild and crazy dude
And now I understand why my mama couldn’t ever stay with you
From the roots, to the branch, to the leaves
They say apples don’t fall far from the trees
Used to find it hard to believe, and I swore that I would
Always hold my family as long as I could
But damn, our memories can be so misleading
It’s misery, I hate to see history repeating
Thought you were the bad guy, but I guess that’s why
Me and my girl split, and my son is leaving
I did chores, did bills and did dirt but
I Swear to God that I tried to make that shit work ’til I
Came off tour to an empty house
With all the dressers and the cabinets emptied out
I think I musta went insane
Thinkin’ I was in love but really in chains
Trapped to this girl by the two year old who carried my name
I tried to stop trippin’, but yo I couldn’t and the plot thickened
That shit affected me, largely because I know a lot of people want me
To fail as a father and the thought of that haunts me
Especially when I check my rear view mirror and don’t see him in his car seat
So the next time it’s late at night
And I’m laid up with the woman I’mma make my wife
Talking about how we gon’ make a life
I’m thinking about child support, alimony, visitation rights
Cause that’s the only outcome if you can’t make it right
Pissed of with your children feeling the same pain
So, Pop how could I blame you cause you couldn’t maintain?
I did the same thing .

“Dealing with the changes other people go through when they see you get just a lil’ taste of success.”

We spent the last year writing rhymes, doing shows and chopping records
And traveled all around the world to spread the message
Cause ain’t no rest for the weary when it comes to my team
We only sleep on December the 32nd
DJs dissing the album before they check it
Dealing with their managers and program directors
And even though I try not to stress it
Sometimes it feels like a waste of time and not worth the effort

Yo I ain’t never heard a act to blow and go global
Then come back home and still be called local
And when we on stage, the people they all front
Dope beats, dope rhymes, what more do y’all want?

“The unpublicized and unglamorous aspects of making music.”

I awoke with a lot on my chest
And every breath that I took it wasn’t getting any better, P
I swear, these niggas wish they could replace me
No bullshit, I watched the rumors chase me
Till it had me in a corner
My back against the wall, yo I thought I was a goner
I let the pressure get the best of
I let words make a mess of what’s left of my pride but
I refuse to hide behind the silence and smiles
It’s been a while though you hearing me now

Even though most of our albums are poorly promoted
And all the magazines probably won’t even quote it
J. League never running or folding
We got tight to steal y’all spotlight
And you won’t even know it
One time for Big Pooh cause he quit eating steak
Two times for 9th Wonder cause he setting it straight

Whatever, I just laugh with it
Cause today’s fan is tomorrow’s rap critic
One day, they giving you the thumbs up
The next, they telling 9th to go and switch his drums up
The best is what they expect
But why they won’t let the music just be what it is
Is anybody’s guess, so .
If y’all feeling this, y’all ain’t gotta analyze it
The shit is dope and we ain’t changing up
Making money and our parents ain’t ashamed of us
And when I think about that I can’t complain as much

Let time fly by as I pen these thoughts
And I’m speeding through life with my car in park
And even in the day sometimes it dark
See niggas blowing up who ain’t got your spark
And that alone is a burden to carry
Either you’ll get strong or you’ll get buried
And rap keep plenty dudes in the cemetery
Pull out your Blackberry’s, change your itineraries
You see, you could be the shit today
And tomorrow wake up, fame blown away
And homie on the real ain’t nothing you can say
That’s why I work hard now, got later to lay

I tried to work with niggas
Don’t wanna jerk them niggas
But everybody’s running around thinking they murderers
Gave birth to niggas, and when I burp them niggas
They spit up old lines that I fed to them earlier
And this is what the state of hip-hop is like
I’m thinking, “Damn, this cannot be right”