An Open Letter to Ms. Chanté Moore Please note the following lyrics from the song, "Bitter" on your CD entitled "Chanté Moorexposed."   "Bitter" I remember the times we shared and I remember the long phone calls at night You used to say the sweetest things But today my phone rings and I wish that you would just stop talking I can't take this anymore You broke my heart and now I know for sure You're not the man I thought you was Compromised myself enough Now its time to stop living this lie now Don't follow me home...nigga Stop ringing my phone...nigga Just leave me alone...nigga I wish you well but right now I'm just bitter Why did you come into my life You didn't plan to do me right If you didn't mean forever more What's you get wit me for No free nook...it's not yours anymore now Don't follow me home...nigga Stop ringing my phone...nigga Just leave me alone...nigga I wish you well but right now I'm just bitter You make me sick...nigga I hate your dog...nigga You made me write this song...nigga I wish you well but I'm gonna find another nigga Written by Phillip Stewart, Chanté Moore, and Katrina Willis EMI Blackwood Music Inc. ASCAP/EMI April Music Breezeville Music-Songs of Peer, LTD All Rights Reserved   Ms. Moore, it's a damn, damn shame that a Black person, male or female, created this HISTORICAL RECORD of our on-going contempt for each other AND, sadly, our failure to evolve from the "brainwashing" that White people used (in a word - nigger, nigger, nigger!) to castrate our freedom. Do the math, Black people have only been FREE in this country for 136 years - that's all, period! My great-grandfather could do nothing as he watched his brother sold into slavery on the R.J. Reynolds tobacco plantation that gave me my last name. I was born in the early 1950s, grew up in the 1960s, and saw the civil rights movement first hand. I saw Black music evolve and never, ever, never, ever heard Gladys or Aretha or any legendary R&B artist demean themself or our race by using the word nigger. You hear that Chanté? Where's your class or, more importantly, where's your sense of responsibility? Ms. Moore do you really expect to elevate your "B" level status as a recording artist by releasing musical crap like "Bitter?" Well, based on your career thus far, the good news is there's little chance your career will gain "legendary" status. Your song, "Bitter," will never, ever, never, ever have the impact of Billie Holiday's recording of "Strange Fruit," that agonizingly recites the aftermath of a Black lynching. Holiday captivates your attention without using the word "nigger." Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand your American right of freedom of speech yet, if you're going to use the "N" word why not use it with surgical precision as have Curtis Mayfield, Gil Scott Heron or the Last Poets?  Ms. Chanté Moore, are you a nigger? Is yo momma a nigger? Is yo daddy a nigger? Hum, now, interracial marriages have ONLY been legal throughout the entire U.S. for just the past 34 years and, you're not too dark skinned, so, you must have some White in ya, huh? If true, does that make you less of a nigga? For the record, I find you to be a beautiful woman and not some nigga bitch, ho, cunt or other negative description typically used by today's young Black hip hop/rap/R&B artists. Silly me, in the past, I purchased your CDs ["Precious," "A Love Supreme," and "This Moment Is Mine"] because I like your music, your voice and, unlike Lil' Kim's pseudo-erotica, you appeared to have more going for you and I found your performances to be entertaining. I didn't preview "MoorExposed" before purchasing it. Perhaps, in the future, I'll exerise greater deliberation in my selection ($$$). After all, it's enough dealing with White people calling us nigger, and I derive absolutely no entertainment value from purchasing music produced by Black people who degrade themselves and me by dropping the "N" word. Your song "Bitter" continues to give people the right to call YOU a nigger. So, go look in a mirror, stand there and call yourself a nigger! Is that who you are? Surely, Ms. Moore you don't wonder why people still call us, call YOU, "nigger!" Please. I'm not "bitter." Frankly, I'm disappointed - in us. For sure, let's keep a proper perspective on our past, but let's move on. Who's really, REALLY holding Black people back when we call each other nigger far more than White people do? Please, stop. Thank you. Take care! I welcome your feedback. Trip Reynolds trip.reynolds@yahoo.com Reynolds' Rap November 21, 1999 © 1999-2021 Tripoetry. All Rights Reserved. First Amendment to the United States Constitution - Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.    © 1999 Trip Reynolds