Some Offended by Rove Rap
By HELENA ANDREWS
03/31/2007 10:14 AM EDT
The YouTube-bound rappin' debut of MC Rove “rocked the house” and even “stole the show,” according to the next day’s papers.
But in the days since, there has been growing unease over Karl Rove’s rap and the media blitz that followed. Among those who weighed in online, including several black journalists, many cringed at the performance and the media’s rave reviews of it.
“My first reaction was… uh,” said Tavia Evans Gilchrist, 27, a journalist in Washington. She saw the clip from the Radio and Television Correspondents’ Association Dinner on NBC’s "Today Show."
A popular listserv for the younger members of the National Association of Black Journalists (which this reporter is a member of) was abuzz early Thursday morning: Was it funny, offensive or just stupid?
Rove performed at Wednesday night’s dinner along with “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” comedians Brad Sherwood and Colin Mochrie, and NBC’s David Gregory and Ken Strickland. Their performance has made the requisite viral video rounds on YouTube, with cable and network television following suit. (The Internet wastes no time—a link to the skit has already been added to Rove’s Wikipedia.org entry.)
The headlines read, “Straight Outta Congress: bustin’ rhymes with MC Rove” and “Rappin’ Rove Rave” (dropping g’s is clearly a hip hop must.)
A brief description for the few who have yet to see the sketch: It involves an ad hoc “hip-hop” group featuring Sherwood (the rapper), Mochrie (the beat box), Karl Rove (as hype man/dancer) and backup boys Gregory and Strickland.
“He’s a man. He’s a treasure-trove. Ah, tell me what is your name?” rap/asks Sherwood.
“I’m MC Rove!” delivers Rove in his best “rap voice.”
“That’s right. He can’t be beat, because he’s so white from his head to his feet.”
Rapping, dancing white guys. Hilarious!
Or not.
“It was definitely that uncomfortable kind of funny,” said Washington-based comedian Erin Jackson, 29, who once worked at CNN. “It just seemed wrong. It was like bizarro.”
Others on the listserv were amazed at Mochrie’s gift of comic freestyling. His delivery was akin to those kitschy BluBlocker sunglass commercials from the ‘90s featuring MC Geek. Remember them? (“My name is Geek. I put ‘em on like a shocker. Man, I love these BluBlockers.”)
One comment on USAToday.com read, “At least he didn’t wear black face.” And from YouTube: “I like how they have the one black guy to give the scene some credibility.”
That “one black guy” is NBC News producer Ken Strickland, who covers the White House.
“I don’t think you can do anything in this town that somebody’s not going to be offended by,” said Strickland, whose side-stepping snaps were on display Wednesday night. “It’s comedy.”
To some, making comedy and hip hop bedfellows just by virtue of sticking a “white guy” in the mix, comes off as lazy on the part of the professional comedians, Sherwood and Mochrie.
“What are we laughing at really? What are we making fun of here?” asked Jackson, who didn’t find MC Rove necessarily “offensive,” just a little off-kilter.
Are we laughing at young people, hip-hoppers (who these days could be Chinese, Iraqi or Palestinian), just black people or what?
The MC Rove spectacle inevitably raised the old debate asking whether white people rapping exploits hip hop. Some white acts have been embraced, such as the legendary Beastie Boys, while others—not so much. Vanilla Ice, anyone?
In February, Newsweek chronicled the rise of “geeksta” or “nerdcore” rap, referring to the subgenre of hip hop that is for and by people more likely to attend a “Star Wars” convention than a Scarface concert.
“Hip-Hop has been exported and exploited by everyone and to everyone for years and it's hard to imagine people still consider it an all-black idiom,” e-mailed a senior black journalist who has worked in Washington since the Reagan administration.
“Nothing like a middle-aged white guy acting like a middle-aged white guy pretending to not be a middle-aged white guy,” said comedian and author Doug Hecox in an e-mail. He also wrote that the skit, like Bush's foreign policy, was “wrong on so many levels.”
“The real worry is that C-SPAN may air this again and again during sweeps,” Hecox added.
Comedian/talk show host Jimmy Kimmel may have put it best—old white men rapping may sound funny, “but it never, ever is.”
Some compared the sketch to a modern-day minstrel show, others tried and failed to muster indignation against it and still others wondered whether the critics were simply over-thinking.
“It ticks me, but I don’t know how to address it,” Evans Gilchrist added.
A White House spokesman said: “We’re not going to comment. We think it speaks for itself.”
https://www.politico.com/story/2007/03/some-offended-by-rove-rap-003377
