.) [ig”no-rance] 1. The condition of being ignorant; the lack of knowledge in general, or in relation to a particular subject; the state of being uneducated or uninformed. 2. A willful neglect or refusal to acquire knowledge which one may acquire and it is his duty to have. [F., fr. L. ignorantia]
It was one of those lazy days one has when they find they have too much time on their hands and not enough stimuli to keep themselves engaged. So there I was scrolling through my phone playlist. Now here I’ll digress for a bit. Am an avid hip hop fan who grew up on Illmatic, Enter the 36 Chambers, Ironman, The Infamous Mobb Deep and A Tribe Called Quest among other classic acts. Basically at a time when hip hop was HIP-HOP and not this watered down bs we get flushed down our throats and ears everyday. Wtf is YMCMB? Here’s to hoping I got the stupid acronym right, I see it enough times everyday to make me wanna hurl.
Anyway there I am scrolling through the REAL hip hop playlist any avid HEAD has in their phone when I come across this one track off;
Pete Rocks.. We Invented the Remix • Can’t stop the prophet (remix) by Jeru the Damaja.
Damn I had a mind busting eargasm. Damn near creamed my.. Ha ha you know the pun. This is a track that’s sheer genius laced over a sweet Pete Rock beat that’s just bananas with a perfect blend of horns, whistles and a soothing laid back baseline that has one nodding subconsciously.
It literally took me back to my first days listening to hip hop on a tapedeck, TDK 90s all the way rigged to a Tempst turntable as an amp with my brother. What really sold me on the track though was the hook. A dope scratch reminiscent of a DJ Premier break on the one and twos. The hook went something like this..
Ignorance is a poison and knowledge is the nourishment.
The beat slows down just enough to have you begging for more and then picks up leaving you entranced and enchanted. It’s a tease damnit and I loved it from the go. I seriously wondered why it felt like I was hearing that particular track for the first time.
Now this hook “ignorance is poison and knowledge is the nourishment” got me thinking and as a person who likes getting their brain farts out there I decided there and then to start on this piece of malarkey. The song goes on to talk about ignorance in depth likening it to a myriad of things along with its concubines hatred, envy and jealousy. Jeru talks about ignorance as the cause of chaos, a being facetious and cavortous that devours sense and sensibility and replaces it with a black void, essentially a black hole that consumes all logic.
Pardon me as I digress one more time and allude to one of my favourite but can’t really term it a cartoon because the Boondocks define themselves and are culture defining. You see they had an episode in their first or second season can’t remember exactly which, in which they had what they called a Nigga Moment. This was basically a moment where logic was surpassed by ignorance resulting of cause in a nigga moment. In the episodes’ case the catalyst being stepping on ones shoes resulting in some senseless acts and random violence when logic would have served better.
Now back to the song and my ensuing thoughts on ignorance. Jeru goes on to talk about looking for ignorance at the library but just finding it waiting on his downfall. This was so so dope to me. You see ignorance will always be everywhere. We find it in daily life from work, to the gym, to the club (especially the club), on a date and everywhere. That racial intolerance is all ignorance, that xenophobia, that harassment at work, that side glance when you walk into a shop and the manger follows you around or asks to assist you just to keep an eye on you is all on Mr Ignorance. Hatred envy and jealousy as the minions of ignorance are ever present and supplant it. Ignorance always runs rampant in such cases where these concubines of it find aboard.
You find hatred of a person a culture a belief rampant among most people and is cross cultural, racial and generational. It festers and manifests as ignorance, the chief cause of senselessness. We loose ourselves as a people in it and allow it to rule our beings. To make us slaves to it’s will, mindless minions like some over patriotised party foot soldiers chanting slogans blindly. It’s disheartening at times to see such malarkey.
Ignorance’s wife is defeat.. Don’t allow yourself to accept defeat. Ignorance hates it when you drop it so go ahead and do so.
I actually wrote this listening to the track!!!
Peace..
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