Shad and K-Os on 'Negro' and the 'N-Word'

Hannah Sung, the host of Canada Reads Book Club, asked K-os and Shad of their opinions on these two words, used in the book Lawrence Hill's Book of Negros.

So like I said yesterday, I really wanted to have rap artists weigh in on the discussion on the word “Negro,” and a more offensive “n-word” that sometimes seems ubiquitous in hip hop.

I called Shad while he was on a quick lunch break at Simon Fraser University, where he’s doing a Masters in philosophy and literature.

I asked him what he thinks of when he hears the word “Negro.”

“It’s a word from another era,” he said. “I wouldn’t use it now, not because I think it’s offensive, but because it describes something else. To me, it describes a different time, people with less rights. Not lesser people, of course, but people with less rights,” he says. “I wouldn’t use it alternatingly with ‘black people,’ or ‘African-Americans.’ It means something different.”

What about the “n-word”?

“It’s complicated,” he said, “Especially with hip-hop music and with hip-hop culture being everywhere. It’s something that makes a lot of people feel uncomfortable. It still has that tone and meaning that most of us associate with it, for me, anyway. Personally, I don’t use it.”

“There are no hard and fast rules,” he continued. “It’s one of those things where it kind of feels wrong coming from some people and doesn’t feel wrong coming from other people. For me, it’s never been a word that I use commonly so it never made sense for me to use it in music. It didn’t feel genuine.”

K-Os had thoughts on the “n-word,” too, and its onomatopoeic nature. I got his thoughts in a late-night e-mail while he was putting the final touches on his upcoming album.

“The ‘n-word’ is a swear word like f---,” he wrote. “No one really knows what it means or even really cares.” He continued to compare the two words by saying, “They just use it to make a point and because of its harsh onomatopoeic tone, f--- like the ‘n-word’ has survived through the ages.”

“That being said, linking any one word to any one group of people is a form of subjugation and propaganda created to box a people in, and the fact that the ‘n-word’ still exists today, fresh in its form, is just a sullen reminder that sticks and stones break bones and…,” K-Os left it with a dot-dot-dot. I think we all know the rest of the saying.

“Words can be powerful tools of truth and illusion – I use them for a living. When I investigate the use of the ‘n-word,’ which at its birth was primarily the Portuguese/Spanish way of saying black or ‘negro,’ it becomes a complex scuba dive to understand why this word still has so much power today!”

Exactly, K-Os — it is complex!

Keep watching this spot to see what K’Naan thinks on this topic. He’s one of my fave rap artists and he not only uses the “n-word,” he and his friends have an interesting usage of the word “Negro.”

Hannah

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