Hip-Hop Family Values

2008-01-16
By Ronda Racha Penrice

“This ain’t the Huxtables but we livin’ comfortable,” rhymes Snoop in his theme song for his E reality show, Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood. The funny thing is Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood, along with Run’s House, is very Huxtablesque. No, I haven’t been hitting the gin and juice; you read correctly. In reality television, hip-hop has become the preferred method of conveying family values. Quite surprising since anyone who watched Oprah’s two-part town hall meeting last April easily concluded that hip-hop is at the core of the erosion of Black family values, with the generation coming before the advent of hip-hop bearing little or no blame.

Before MTV unveiled Run’s House starring Rev. Run (a.k.a. Joey Simmons) of Run-D.M.C. and his clan (wife Justine and five kids, Vanessa, Angela, JoJo, Diggy and Russy) in the fall of 2005, most of America could not have pictured a hip-hop family as wholesome. Run’s not a doctor and Justine is not a lawyer, yet they tackle similar issues. Like the Huxtables, education is valued in the Simmons household. Raising courteous and well-mannered children is also a priority for Run and Justine. The new millennium catch is the art of the hustle, one of hip-hop’s core values.

Even as the family is smiling at Diggy’s impressive dance moves, grieving the loss of a child or welcoming the newly adopted Miley Justine Simmons into the family, they are also ‘getting money’. The list of Simmons family hustles goes on and on:  Vanessa and Angela have their own shoe line, Pastry; Angela is the editor-in-chief of the teen-fanzine Word Up!; Vanessa is also an actress; and JoJo is plotting his own rap dynasty. Considering the kids’ uncle is Russell Simmons, it’s no wonder ka-ching is pumping through their veins. Mama Justine even writes children’s books and now hocks jewelry via QVC.

Snoop Dogg, is the newest kid on the hip-hop reality show block. Unlike Run’s House, Snoop Dogg’s Father Hood more closely resembles a sitcom format. There’s no random camera action here. Scripted reality is the modus operandi. In one episode, Snoop decides to teach his kids soccer. Not quite taking to the game, the children tease Dad about not knowing David Beckham, the international icon of that other football. To their surprise, not only does Snoop know (or rather gets to know) Mr. Beckham, he arranges private lessons for him and the kids.

Snoop’s show is mostly cute and fun but he does take a few stances. Following the 2007 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors, he sounded off about how little credit rappers receive for fathering their children. “We’re becoming fathers,” he said, “and we’re doing something that our fathers didn’t do. Every rapper- I’ll say that 90 percent of rappers grew up without fathers. Now we see 90 percent of the rappers becoming fathers to their kids. We don’t never get commended for that . . .”

Now his show, Run’s House and Gotti’s Way, starring Irv Gotti, the toppled mastermind behind Ja Rule and Ashanti who beat federal money laundering charges, all show Black fathers in action.

This is not to say that the often-criticized hip-hop lifestyle is conducive to maintaining a family. On Gotti’s Way, video vixens are at the center of the disintegration of Gotti’s family and it’s far from a laughing matter. Contrary to the numerous rap songs where rappers boast about their harems, Irv’s estranged wife Deb hasn’t been hit by the “share your man with every chica” epidemic that music videos insist have overtaken America.

Making matters most interesting, Irv’s own parents have been happily married for decades so he isn’t lacking a strong example of marital bliss. To explain his detour, Irv has tried his damnedest to convince his wife (and himself) that infidelity is just an occupational hazard.

Keyshia Cole’s The Way It Is demonstrates the effects not having a father in the home (or, more correctly, not knowing him) as well as dealing with a crack-addicted mother prone to incarceration, She may be climbing up the R&B charts but the emotional distress has not disappeared. In some ways, it has intensified. Her sister Neffe is finally out of a dysfunctional marriage but faces raising three young girls (possibly four children) on her on. Their mother Frankie is finally out of jail and Keyshia, like so many people who are doing better than their immediate family, rushed in to take care of them. Regardless of your circumstances, it’s hard to turn your back on your family.

Perhaps that’s the value of television’s current obsession with hip-hop reality. Because hip-hop has been popularly characterized as frivolous, audience expectations are probably low. I am certain a few television execs signed on the dotted line with a punch line in mind. But hip-hop doesn’t dominate global charts for no reason. When you peel away the layers, you can find many life lessons. At the end of the day, we all want to be better people that we were the day before.  While much of the viewing audience longs for the money and the fame of these hip-hop stars, ultimately it’s the health and happiness of families that matter most. And hip-hop reality shows are proving that they can rise to the challenge of delivering that message almost as brashly as a certain upwardly mobile family did almost twenty-five years ago.

Veteran freelance writer and self-diagnosed television junkie Ronda Racha Penrice is the author of African American History For Dummies, which includes a chapter on film and television.