Most people know Scoop Jackson as a sports journalist lending his colorful opinions to outlets like ESPN and Slam magazine. Few people actually know that Scoop Jackson has an extensive Hip Hop background.
Robert āScoopā Jackson is the founding and former Executive Editor in Chief of XXL magazine, a former Associate Editor of Rap Sheet, and a former columnist for Scratch, VIBE, and Source magazines.
Itās safe to say he knows his stuff.
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Wouldnāt you know it, I met Scoop Jackson at a Hip Hop event in the fall of 2009. As I walked into Chicagoās Shrine nightclub I saw Vinny and Treach from Naughty by Nature, the legendary Bobbito Garcia, and award-winning writer Scoop Jackson in a summitāa Hip Hop summit.
I recently picked Scoopās brain about the past, present, and future of Rap. It was one of the most intriguing interviews that Iāve ever done and now I get to share it with the world. Hip Hop as Scoop Jackson sees itāenjoy!
HipHopDX: We know you from ESPN, but can you tell the readers of HipHopDX about your background in Hip Hop.
Scoop Jackson: Well the history with the culture goes back like a lot of peopleās. A lot of people got involved with it as it evolved. I am 46 years old right now, so Iām that kid that grew up on Herman Kellyās āDance to the Drummerās Beatā and Fatback Bandās āKing Tim IIIā āthe original songs that were Hip Hop. Most people will tell you that the Sugar Hill Gang was the first Rap record they ever heard, [but] I would say āBall of Confusionā by The Temptations was the first Rap song I ever heard. My being immersed in the culture is a lot like everybody else but I was able to connect to it on a professional level. I want to say it was when I was in [college] because thatās when I first started writing about Hip Hop.
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My last semester [as an] undergrad I did a little newsletter for a teacher as an assignment. Like, you gotta create something in order to graduate type of thing. This was in like 1985 or ā86. I did this one page newsletter about Hip Hop called The Scoop/The Source. This was before The Source magazine came out. It was basically my version of what Nelson George was doing in Billboard magazine at the time. Nelson was the only person that I knew at the time that was writing about Hip Hop. I basically took Nelsonās thing and flipped itāfor lack of a better word I sampled it. Years later, when I got to Howard University and it came time to do my Masterās thesis, I decided to do it on Hip Hopāif you really need a jump off point that was it.
At the time in 1990 or ā91, there had never been any academic or theoretical study on Hip Hop. There had been one! There was a book out by Houston Baker and there was a lady at the University of Maryland, but nobody had really done an academic or theoretical study on the music of Hip Hop. So what I did was I took Albert Banterās Social Learning Theory and W.E.B Duboisā The Souls of Black Folks and applied that to the pro-social effects that Hip Hop could have on the black communityāthat was my Masterās thesis. Understand that when you do a Masterās thesis, thatās a year of studying. At the time, there werenāt other studies done that I was able to go back on and use as templates to build my study on. All I had was the culture itself. All I had was the music, the impact, the graffiti, the sound, the lyricsāthatās all I had to study. I was already into it but it made me look at the art at an entirely different level because I was applying it to something that was academic. Everything kind of rolled from there.
Iām not going to sit up and say I was the first person to do a Masterās thesis on Hip-Hop but there were very few people that had done itāless than a handful. Thatās really what got me into it. I used it to help me to graduate and get my masterās degree. Back then, Hip Hop was viewed as strictly noiseāit wasnāt even looked at as an art form at the time. I lucked up because at the time we were looking at the cusp of Boogie Down Productions, X-Clan, Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, Gang Starr, and Ice Cube had just gone solo after leaving N.W.A. There was a conscious movement going on that I was able to sell to my professors to look at this as an art form of substance and something worth studying at the academic level.
DX: How did you take that and go into being an editor for magazines like XXL and Rap Pages?
Scoop Jackson: What wound up happening is that I started doing somewhat social commentary, writing editorials. I had a regular column at the Hilltop Newspaper at Howard University. But then some of my stuff was popping up in the Washington Post, The Christian Science Monitor and USA Today. I was doing open editorials and a lot of them were based in Hip Hop. From there, I started to get my hustle on from a freelance standpoint. I was trying to write in The Source, get in Rap Sheet, get in Rap Pages, VIBE hadnāt even started yet.
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Then I created my own newsletter in Chicago called The Agenda and it was extremely based in Hip Hop. I wanted to do the black version of the Village Voice. It extended itself because thatās what I tended to write about. Sports, there was no outlet for me to write sports. My history from school and doing a Masterās thesis on the subject of Hip Hop I realized I was one of the few people that had my feet in both worlds. I was still stuck in Hip Hop from a personal standpoint and a lifestyle standpoint but I was dealing with it from an academic level. I could probably tell some Hip Hop stories that were not being told to an audience that wasnāt paying attention to Hip Hop. With that in mind, of course I started approaching some of the magazines that were doing it.
Rap Sheet in Los Angeles gave me the chance to really start writing about Hip Hop. New York was very cliquish, especially The Source. They had their crew and to break into that, if you aināt from there or forcing yourselves on them every day theyāre not giving you a look at all, at all. The editor of Rap Sheet was Darryl James, he said, āLook man, I like your stuff. I like what youāre trying to say,ā and he gave me the opportunity to write. After writing for a while he put me on as [the] associate editor and I just started flipping stories from there and doing them on a regular basis.
DX: You mentioned earlier about acts like X-Clan, Ice Cube, and Public Enemyāsocially conscious groups. We donāt really see those acts in rap today and you could almost draw a parallel with sports where athletes arenāt as socially conscious. What do you think the reason is behind thatā¦
Scoop Jackson: Iāll ask you, who is socially conscious?
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DX: Today?
Scoop Jackson: Yeah!
DX: In sports orā¦
Scoop Jackson: In life! See, you gotta understand from my stand point this feeds off of what happens with society first. Society sets the tone in this instance. Back in the day weāre talking about Roy Innis, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and Louis Farrakhan really being at the forefront. Come on, letās be serious. Look at the role Louis Farrakhan had back then and the role he plays now in the black community. Youāre talking about a time where Hip Hop fed off of that. Back then there were people all over the country talking about the impact of the 5% Nation [of Gods and Earths]. Ask any cat under the age of 30 right now if they even know what the 5% Nation is and they couldnāt tell you. Hip Hop didnāt start that. Voices came from a societal role where our backs were pushed up against the wall because of what came out of the Reagan Administration and we had to fight backāwe had to get vocal. If you look at the history of black folks in this country youāll find that to be true.
Every time we find our backs up against the wall we find a way to find a voice and it comes from society first. Dr. [Martin Luther] King did not start the Civil Rights Movement that was going on way before he was, but he became a major figure in it. Listen to the music that came from that era, the music didnāt start the crusade for blacks to find freedom in the ā60s. Curtis Mayfield didnāt start that movement, Gamble & Huff didnāt start that movement; they fed into it because thatās what was going on in society at that time. The same thing applies to Hip Hop. So when you ask about the musicians and the athletes not doing social commentary, I need to ask you, in society who is basically doing it?
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DX: Thatās a great point, thereās nobody.
Scoop Jackson: Thank you. There you go. It doesnāt start with that. I donāt think we need to be of big belief that the arts or entertainment is whatās going to lead us out of whatever situation we feel is holding us down. It has to start with society; it has to start with us. There has to be a groundswell that comes from the street or wherever, somebodyās house or somebodyās basement. Itās a different form of activism and it doesnāt come from entertainment. The reason why itās not being done now is because as far as Iām concerned itās because itās not being done from the blueprint. The blueprint hasnāt established that type of movement yet. We havenāt found it necessary.
There was a small movement affront with [President] Barack [Obama] and our contribution in getting him elected which was huge. That was like a collective effort. That wasnāt like a fight that had to deal with race and oppression. Itās going to be hard to look for something to come out of that. Entertainers and athletes did play a big role in that, and I was happy to see that. But I donāt think the place that we live in right now historically is going to allow us to see the music from back in the day that was about movement or nationalism for lack of a better word. Youāre not going to see that right now because weāre not pushing for thatāweāre on something different.
DX: Common always tells the story about when he was a ball-boy for the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan came into practice with a boom-box bumping Whodiniās āFriendsāā¦.
Scoop Jackson: I could believe that.
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DX: MJ never gave off the impression to the public that he was a big Hip Hop listener. We never got that from him but Allen Iverson came along and he became the Hip Hop Generationās ball-player. Talk about Iverson and his impact as Hip Hopās ball-player.
Scoop Jackson: Iāve always thought that [Allen] Iverson, even to this day, is the most influential athlete weāve had over this past generation. He represents an entire generation the same way Mike [Jordan] did a generation before, the same way Julius Erving did before that, and Muhammad Ali before that. Iverson represents this generation of athlete. If you look at the role that athletes have played in the history of African Americans youāll understand itās more than just what they do. At the center of us being able to do things, integration, civil rights, itās pointed at our athletes. Iām specifically talking about Jackie Robinson. Look at the role that Muhammad Ali playedāand our athletes are not just athletes. They tend to transcend what they doāIverson is the same way. If you look at Iverson as just a basketball player youāll miss his point. The same way if you look at Jordan as just a basketball player youāll miss what he stood for.
I think for this generation there has not been anyone that has had the type of impact that Allen Iverson has had. He makes the cats that he visually and theoretically represents feel that he speaks for them in a larger arena. At the same time, heās also found a way to break down the walls of certain parts of America that are straight up in fear of that person or who that person represents and lessen that fear a little bit. Heās been able to do both the same way that Michael Jordan was able to do certain things as far as people in America resisting their sons and daughter idolizing a person to that degree. Michael made it palatable to say, āhey itās cool to idolize.ā Iām not talking about just having a poster on the wall, thatās one thing but when you have kids wanting to be like someone, thatās a whole different realm.
If you really think about it Michael Jordan made it cool and understandable for a lot of Americans who would have problems with their kids saying they wanted to literally be like Mike. I can do that, Iām not going to lie and say you can be Charles Barkley but Mike we can take. [Laughs] The same thing happened with Iverson to a different degree. He made it a little easier for certain families in America to accept what he was bringing to the table. Iāll put it to you this way, if there was no Allen Iverson as a buffer I donāt think white America would have embraced 50 Cent the way that they did or Lil Wayne. Think about it, if they had to jump from Michael Jordan straight to 50?
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DX: [Laughs]
Scoop Jackson: There has to be a buffer to say hey we can swallow this pill because the next pill is bigger. It makes it a little bit easier and it happens over time. Thatās the importance of someone like Allen Iverson.
DX: Iāve been a Chicago Bulls season-ticket holder for seven years. I noticed when Yao Ming comes to town, Chinese people come out in full force, but when Iverson comes to town, the hood is there. I donāt care if heās with the Detroit Pistons, Denver Nuggets, or Philadelphia 76ers I never see that many black people at the games.
Scoop Jackson: Nah, because he represents a part of us and a part of our society that weāre proud to see break throughāwhether we love him or not. There are certain individuals that really arenāt supposed to make it because everything is stacked against them and heās one of those dudesāreally. Heās one of those dudes that even though we may not agree with a lot of things that Iverson has done or what he stands for, thereās a deep appreciation whether its covert or overt that respects the fact that he has not let the game change him. He has stood strong and stood through it all for good or for bad like, look this is what Iām from.
The one that thing we as black people totally understand, totally as long as it doesnāt get to the borderline situation of dealing with ignorance, is for you not to be ashamed of who you areāwe appreciate that. Weāve seen it so often where black individuals get to a certain point and turn away from what they were. From moving out of the neighborhood, to putting down other black folks, to now getting all types of feature changes, there are all types of subtleties where we separate ourselves from where we were. Iverson has never done that. He has been unapologetic and thatās why you see people from the hood represent because of that alone. And itās not even defiance itās more like pride.
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DX: Iverson is the Hip Hop ball player, but youāre the Hip Hop sports journalist. Talk about the ups and downs of being a sports writer with a Hip Hop style.
Scoop Jackson: Itās that alone. Basically what we just got through talking about with Allen Iverson. Iāve been called the Allen Iverson of sports journalism. Basically, you just take it for what it isāyou have to take pride in that. A lot of what I just said about Iverson Iāve had to apply to my own career. Chuck [Iverson] and I have joked about thatāitās an ongoing joke between us. We joke about our careers because of the parallels that come with it. I by no means had the same kind of upbringing or life that Allen Iverson had. From the journalist perspective, it kind of has been because Iām the kind of guy thatās cut from a different cloth.
Iāve never been ashamed of where I come from or who I am. Iāve never been apologetic of what I had to go through to get there. When youāre dealing with a society that loves to label certain things Iāve been given the label of the Hip Hop journalist. Iām not one to run away from that, Iāll accept it. Iām one of those cats that has always felt comfortable that if you stick me in that black box that a lot of black folks donāt want to get put in. You hear black folks saying I donāt want to be looked at as the black this, that, or the otherāI donāt ever run away from that. I want that. Iām cool with that because I understand the impact and importance of something like that. Itās not about trying to sell five million albums. Itās not all about trying to be Michael Jackson. Iām comfortable being Frankie Beverly & Maze. You know what Iām saying?
DX: You know thatās an interesting analogy. I interviewed O.C. & A.G. ā
Scoop Jackson: ā Ah man before you even get into it Iām going to ask you a question. This is an argument we had a long time ago. Iāll take the Digginā in the Crates crew period, from Lord Finesse, Diamond D, Showbiz & A.G. and lyrically stand them up against anybody in any point in time that you would consider a crew. Iām talking about the Native Tongues crew, Death Row [Records], and The Juice Crew. Lyrically, Iāll take Digginā in the Crates.
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DX: Iām a little biased; I have to roll with the Wu-Tang Clan.
Scoop Jackson: Okay. See Iām looking at them as a group, not a crew. Native Tongues was [A] Tribe [Called Quest], De La [Soul], Jungle Brothers, Monie Love, they were a crew, The Juice Crew was Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Masta Ace, Biz Markie, and Roxanne Shante, thatās a heavy-weight crew!
DX: Thatās a tough one man. I donāt even have an answer for that one.
Scoop Jackson: You threw out O.C. & A.G., and A.G. was so ridiculous. The trump card in all of that is Big L. You throw Big L out there and Iām like man canāt nobody fuck with Big L! Man you can print this; I got into the biggest argument with Timbaland. I was doing a story on him for XXL. We were at Jimi Hendrixā studio Electric Lady in New York, and got into an argument about who was the better rapper Eminem or Big L. I said, āDude, you joking me right now!ā He said, āSix million people canāt be wrong about Em. Em is sick.ā Iām like, āThereās no way in hell Em could come close to fucking with Big L.ā We got into an argument about it man, Iām serious, and it fucked up the whole interview. [Laughs]
DX: [Laughs] That happens in Hip Hop discussions. I was talking to A.G., and I told him how I told some young dude that Ghostface Killah was nice and he was like, āHe aināt got no money though.ā They donāt even know his financial status but they know heās not 50 Centā¦
Scoop Jackson: He doesnāt have hits either. Thatās the thing; they equate relevance to some sort of fame or success as opposed to talent and skill. I think Posdnous said, āFuck being hard, Iām trying to be complicated.ā I think that was the mindset back in the day. When you look at emcees and us coming up on those emcees we looked for cats to be able to do things that a cat off the street couldnāt do. Thatās how we equated greatness.
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DX: Yes!
Scoop Jackson: Now itās like you gotta move some units now! If you aināt moving units weāre not giving you a look at allāat all!
DX: There seems to have been a shift. When I was coming up MC Hammer was the one who sold records. Eric B. & Rakim did great but they didnāt sell what Hammer sold.
Scoop Jackson: Not even close.
DX: But they had respect, Hammer didnāt. Now itās like whoever sells the most gets the most respect.
Scoop Jackson: Right! But if you really think about it thatās the way the game is shifted right now and it shifts like that in everything. Thatās the way society has changed. Weāve really gotten out of touch with how we judge what is and what is not great. If a movie does not make a certain amount of money, whether we love it or not we just automatically go, āAh, it wasnāt that good.ā At some point what gets lost is the skillāthe ability of folks doing stuff that the average person canāt do. It goes across the board on everything. Hip Hop has been victimized from that more than anything. Look at singing in general. I dare you to tell me anybody vocally that can out-sing Jennifer Hudson.
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DX: I donāt even know.
Scoop Jackson: But if you ask anybody who the best singer is her name is not going to come up because she hasnāt moved those units. Itās about the hotness right now. They will tell you Lady Gaga or Katy Perry who can sing but they canāt touch Jennifer. You know thatāitās not even close. Alicia Keys, come on now. Theyāre not going to mention Jennifer because sheās not moving those units. If you ask a singer, a singer-singer who is the best singer there may be two people they mention. One is Christina Aguileraāwe know she can blow. And the other person is Kim Burrell, the Gospel singer out of Houston. Do you know who Kim Burrell is?
DX: No idea.
Scoop Jackson: See! If you ask any singer from Beyonce to Mary J Blige theyāll be like, āKim Burrell can blow anybody out of the water.ā But no one knows who she is. The testimonials will come to her but society will never accept her as being one of the greatest because sheās not moving units. Back in the day, we used to take pride and appreciate what people do. Rakim is a classic example. Depending on the age range of the people ask who is the greatest rapper ever and a lot of folks will give Jay-Z that title. Thereās no argument about that but who would Jay-Z say? Rakim.
DX: Before Obama was elected I was talking to a co-worker about going down to Grant Park to see Obama on election night. I said you know the greatest day of my life was being at the Million Man March and this might surpass that. I told the guy that I was heavily influenced by Louis Farrakhan and he laughed in my faceāthis is a black man now. He said he hated the Minister and asked me, āWhy do you like him?ā I said dude he saved my life. I was in the streets doing nothing and being a knucklehead until my boy gave me a Farrakhan tape. It changed my life. The guy looked amazed. He said are you serious? I see similar things in Hip-Hop. Itās a generational thingāthis guy is in his late 20ās. To him Farrakhan is a joke, but for me he saved my life.
Scoop Jackson: Farrakhan saved a lot of peopleās lives. He set the pace for what we were talking about earlier. Everything flowed from him. Rap music didnāt put Farrakhan at the forefront, he did that for them. He made the climate comfortable for rappers to say, itās cool to say this. That was the culminating moment of Farrakhanās movement but before that weāre talking about 15-20 of work. It wasnāt like he woke up and got a million men to show up, it took 15-20 years of work for him to get people to believe in what his word was.
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When someone laughs in your face when you mention the name Farrakhan this is where we need to go with this from this point forward, if you look at the Obama campaign, this is what I loved about the Obama campaign because it exposed all of our so-called leaders for what they really were. If you go back and look at everybody, there were only two people, two that we consider black leaders that were unequivocal in their stance behind Barack and were very open about it. They didnāt question anything and understood the significance of it; it was Oprah Winfrey and Louis Farrakhanāthatās it.
This is one of those things where weāre starting to judge who our heroes and icons are and who we follow, there will be times in history where we find out how black you really are and what this really means to you. Is this about us or is this about you? If you sit here and tell me that youāre a black man and youāre behind Obama, letās look at those whose feet never left the fire when it got hot. There are only two people that let their feet get burned because of this and Farrakhan was one of them. After that you canāt tell me shit bad about Farrakhan now. You canāt say shit to me about Oprah Winfrey. She was more supportive of Barack than Michelle [Obama] was.
DX: [Laughs]
Scoop Jackson: Think of what she had to lose!
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DX: Everything.
Scoop Jackson: Everything. At this point you canāt tell me nothing about Oprah. As for cats who laugh at Farrakhan, put it in perspective and give them something to think about.
DX: I try to avoid that conversation.
Scoop Jackson: Well itās not avoiding the conversation, itās putting an end to the conversation. Thatās a part of educating so we make different generations think about stuff so they learn something. Thatās why today you got cats like Lupe [Fiasco] who canāt get a look, but Drake is considered the best emceeāsomething is wrong.
DX: In sports thereās a certain amount of respect for the people who came before the new generation. In the NBA, they honor Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Julius Erving and so forth. In Hip Hop, you donāt hear Kool Moe Deeās name mentioned anymore. Melle Mel is in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and his name doesnāt come up when the greatest emcee conversation comes up. Why do you think there is a different amount of respect for the elders in Rap?
Scoop Jackson: This is what has to be done because it may be old, but [great emcees from yesteryear are] not a joke. [If Iām a young Rap fan], I may like Weezy better, I may like Wale, I may like Drake, or Gucci Mane but Iām not going to look at this cat as a joke. If you ask these young cats right now they see LL [Cool J] on fucking Sears commercials and theyāre like, this cat is a clown!
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DX: Thatās another good point. I asked a group of young guys who was the best west coast emcee, Ice Cube, Snoop Dogg, or 2Pac, and they all said 2Pac unanimously. I would put Cubeās first three albums against anything that Snoop and āPac ever did.
Scoop Jackson: Easily!
DX: But these guys see Ice Cube as a guy who makes bad movies.
Scoop Jackson: This happens because in our involvement in music culture as far as telling stories and musical outlets are concerned we arenāt continuous in telling storiesāweāre caught up in the now. When youāre dealing with an infrastructure like the NBA itās not the players that make a point to stay reminded of the groundwork that is laid before them, thatās what the league does. If youāre listening to NBA basketball games, you donāt hear young cats calling these games, you get Hubie Brown. And if you listen to them itās always a sense of history. Look at the NBA outlets, hoop magazines, and throwback jerseys thatās a part of history. These magazines are always telling stories about Lew Alcindor and Bernard King, itās always in your face. Hell, LeBron James lost two years of high school basketball because of a Wes Unseld jersey! Do you think some rapper out here is going to lose two days of school because heās following Kool G Rap? He donāt even know who the hell Kool G Rap is.
Who is informing them of this? The NBA and the NFL has an infrastructure in place to keep that history alive. Look at the infrastructure in Hip Hop and how fractured and fragmented it is. Even at the record industry stand point, they donāt even send these cats on tours so this generation knows who these cats are. They donāt treat Hip Hop the same way they treat Rock & Roll. I can go and see the Grateful Dead right now. Jerry Garcia was eight generations ago. Bruce Springsteen, if The Police decide to gets together theyāre going to get to tour. Theyāre still radio stations in every city that I can tune in and hear this music all the time. People say radio stations are obsolete but they are still a source of information. Tell me what city you can go to and turn on the radio and hear Kool Moe Dee?
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DX: They donāt exist. I donāt listen to the radio at all. A female co-worker of mine said, āWell, how do you know whatās new?ā It never dawned on me that this is some peoples only source of hearing music and thatās scary.
Scoop Jackson: Yeah. Look at it from a distribution stand point. Everything is so isolated now. You can get your history of music going into a mom-and-pop record store. If you go to Virgin or Target the sales people arenāt educating you on the history of music. If you go to the mom and pop store theyāre either playing some shit or talking about some shit. So when you talk about lineage of music as opposed to the lineage of sports itās a disconnectāitās huge, really huge. To me it goes back to the infrastructure from radio, to print, to conversations, to the record industry supporting certain things, there is a break offāa vast break off thatās partially responsible for the fan base of Hip Hop not understanding the importance of what was done before these cats got to where they are right now.