An Intimate Conversation With David Banner On The State Of Black Love & Marriage

david banner 2I listened to your “Marry Me” track when it first dropped and I really loved it. I was just talking to somebody about how we don’t really have that kind of music that celebrates love and relationships like back in the day when we had The Isley Brothers, and when men and women were actually celebrating love and marriage. So how did the track come about, what made you want to do a song about marriage?

There were a couple things. One of the things that happened was 9th Wonder was actually producing, and the reason why I made the song because he asked me a question. He said that most of the rappers that really pushed the culture forward–and who are making a whole lot of money–are over the age of 35. But have you ever noticed they never talk about men’s subjects?

One of the reasons why I let my beard grow out is because I wanted young men to see a successful Black man grow one. I wanted them to see the wisdom. Another thing is that this song is for Black women, but it’s especially for dark-skinned black women.

You look at most of who so-called people of success cater to—nine times out of 10 it may not be a Black woman at all. And if it is, it’s definitely not ones that look like our great grandmothers. And I said man, if nobody in the world says that they love them and that they respect them and that they want them, it’ll be me.

And lastly, and the most important thing about this song, one of my friends told me, “David Banner, I know you want to save the world, I know you want to help Black people and the revolution and all of that, but in order for you to do any of those things, you have to mend the relationships with our families—with our women.” He told me until I build the family back together, none of this will work. He said in slavery, our families were ripped apart and we never healed them. We always blame it on Black on Black, but before we were ever so-called “set free,” we never mended our relationships with our family and with our women.

That’s actually a good point. I see a lot of people who are hurt and responding from places of pain, and we’re not really getting to the root of the problem. We’re so busy pointing fingers at the opposite sex. It’s not only about healing the family, but healing ourselves personally.

There’s no way that a man can raise a female child by himself and expect for her to be mentally functional. Just because a woman can raise a man that is successful in the United States doesn’t mean that you properly raised a man. This is my personal opinion. We cannot make a proper child–a proper relationship–without a union of God, woman, and man. And what’s sad about it is, they have degraded the role of a woman so much. We need balance, and that doesn’t mean that the man is more important than woman or the woman more important than man, but we need both roles to properly raise anything.

It is very important for me to say that I’ve done enough degrading of our women myself. So, in no way is this downgrading any other rappers or saying what any other black man should do, this is for me. I have some making up to do. I have forgotten myself. With “Play,” even though I really enjoyed it and I don’t think there is anything wrong with that [song] in its proper place, there is no balance.

For “Marry Me” to even be looked at as the type of song that it is shows the problem—the fact that it’s so special. “Marry Me” shouldn’t be special. There should be a million songs like that. And the fact that it is so special and that women are crying all over the world because of this record, shows that it’s a problem, and shows that there is no balance.

And honestly love, that is the reason why I made “Marry Me.” And it’s so funny, all of these people sit back and criticize men and rap music and all of this different stuff, now you have it, now you have the “Marry Me” song, now you have the strong black man who don’t take no shit singing the type of songs that you were talking about, but let’s see if we’re going to get that story. Let’s see if you’re going talk about that as bad as you talk about black men.

Are we going to go as hard for “Marry Me” the song as we do when we criticize black men and women in general? People always talk about what black men are not doing, but when we do it, it’s just like, we even had somebody to say is it even going to even matter? These are the types of things that we’re going to have to analyze.

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