an interesting article on hip hop

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Oct 7, 2002
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I know you've been thinking it. And if you haven't,

you probably haven't been paying attention. The art we

once called hip hop has been dead for some time now.

But because its rotting carcass has been draped in

platinum and propped against a Gucci print car, many

of us have missed its demise.


I think the time has come to bid a farewell to the

last black arts movement.


It's had a good run but it no longer serves the

community that spawned it. Innovation has been

replaced with mediocrity and originality replaced with

recycled nostalgia for the ghost of hip hop past,

leaving nothing to look forward to. Honestly when was

the last time you heard something (mainstream) that

made you want to run around in circles and write down

every word. When was the last time you didn't feel

guilty nodding your head to a song that had a 'hot

beat' after realizing the lyrical content made you

cringe.


When I heard Jam Master Jay had been murdered, it was

the icing on the cake.


A friend and I spoke for hours after he'd turned on

the radio looking for solace and instead heard a

member of the label Murder, Inc. about to give

testimony about the slain DJ's legacy. My friend found

the irony too great to even hear what the rapper had

to say.


After we got off the phone, I dug through my crates

and played the single "Self Destruction." The needle

fell on the lyrics:

"They call us animals

I don't agree with them

Let's prove em wrong

But right is what were proving em"


The only thing that kept me from crying was my anger

trying to imagine today's top hip hop artists getting

together to do a song that urged disarmament in

African American communities, or promoted literacy, or

involved anything bigger than themselves for that

matter. I couldn't picture it.


All I could picture were the myriad of hip hop

conferences where the moguls and figureheads go

through the motions and say the things that people

want to hear but at the end of the day nothing

changes. No new innovative artists are hired to

balance out a roster of the pornographic genocide MC's

.


In their place, we're presented with yet more examples

of arrested development - the portrayal of grown men

and women acting and dressing like 15 year olds.

Balding insecure men in their mid 30's making entire

songs about their sexual prowess and what shiny toys

they have and you don't.


The only hate I see is self-hate. The only love I see

is self-love. All one needs to do is watch cribs and

notice none of these people showing off their heated

indoor pools or the PlayStation Two consoles installed

in all twelve of their luxury cars have a library in

their home. Or display a bookshelf, for that matter.

No rapper on cribs has ever been quoted saying: "Yeah,

this is the room where I do all my reading, nahmean?"


To quote Puffy in Vogue magazine Nov, 2002: "Diamonds

are a great investment... They're not only a girl's

best friend, they are my best friend. I like the way

diamonds make me feel. I can't really explain it, its

like: that's a rock, something sent to me from nature,

from God, it makes me feel good... It's almost like my

security cape."


If rappers read, they might know about the decades of

near-slavery endured by South African diamond miners.

Or the rebels in Sierra Leone whose bloody

diamond-fueled anti-voting rampages leave thousands of

innocent men, women and children with amputated limbs.



Often, hip hop's blatant excess is rationalized with,

"We came from nothing." That statement rings hollow

given even a little bit of context. African Americans

have been "coming from nothing" for 400 years. That

didn't stop previous generations of artists,

activists, and ancestors from working toward a better

situation for the whole, not just themselves.


It's

grotesque to see such selfish materialism celebrated

by a generation who are literally the children of

apartheid. The time has come to re-define the street

and what it means to come from the street. Yes,

criminals & violence come from the streets, but so do

men and women who live their lives with kindness, and

within the realm of the law. The problem with making

'street' or 'realness' synonymous with criminality

is that poor black children are demonized. You never

see the image of middle class white children killing

each other promoted as entertainment.


I respect the ability of an artist to explore the

darker side or extremities of their personality but

when that's all there is, there is no balance. In

previous years, NWA existed simultaneously with Native

Tongues, Cypress Hill and Digable Planets, Gangstar

and 2 live crew.


There's room for thugz, playaz, gangstas, and what

have you. My issue (aside from the fact that rappers

spell everything phonetically) is that they have no

heart. Rappers reflect what has become a new image of

success where money is its own validation and caring

is soft unless you're dropping a single about your

dead homie.


Question: Why haven't these so-called "ballers" gotten

together and bought a farm, a prison, a super market

chain, or chartered a school? But they all have

clothing lines. Smells like a sucker to me. The lack

of social responsibility from people who claim to 'rep

the streets' is stunning.


Yet we still have had the hearts and minds of most of

the world. We negate this power if we don't step up to

the plate. Our perspective needs to change; our whole

idea of power needs to globalize.


Gangsta shouldn't be

shooting someone you grew up with in the face;

"Gangsta" is calling the United States to task for not

attending the World Summit on Racism in South Africa.

"Balling" shouldn't be renting a mansion; it should be

owning your own distribution company or starting a

union. Bill Cosby's bid to buy NBC was more

threatening than any screwface jewelry clad MC in a

video could ever be.


As a DJ, it's hard: I pick up the instrumental version

of records that people nod their head to... and mix it

with the a cappella version of artists with something

to say.

It is expensive and frustrating. But I feel

like the alternative is the musical equivalent to

selling crack: spinning hits because it's easy,

ignoring the fact that it's got us dancing to

genocide. There are plenty of alternatives today but

you'd never know it through the mass media. Hip hop

has become Steven Seagal in a do-rag.

Meanwhile, media

radar rarely registers artists like Cannibal Ox,

Madlib and the whole Stones Throw crew, Bless, Saul

Williams, Bus Driver, Del, Gorillaz, anything from Def

Jux, Freestyle Fellowship, Anti Pop Consortium, Kool

Keith, Prince Paul, @#%$ Public Enemy... the list goes

on for ever. I get some solace from knowing and

supporting these artists, and from the fact that

around the world from Germany to Cuba to Brazil to

South Africa, hip hop's accessibility and capacity for

genius is still vital, thriving, and relevant.


And yes even amongst the bleak landscape in this

country, wonderful things do happen. Like Camp Cool J

and various artists donating money to research AIDS

and even lend their faces to voting campaigns. Russell

Simmons, among other socially conscious endeavors, led

a rally to stop NYC's mayor from cutting the school

budget and donates part of the proceeds from his

sneaker sales to the reparations movement. The lack of

coverage of efforts like this is as much to blame as

any wack MC with a platinum record.


I'm not dissing the innovators of the art form, or

those of us who got it where it is today. I will

always play and support what I feel is good work. I

guess this rant came more out of what Chuck D said at

the end of Self Destruction: "We've got to keep

ourselves in check," and no one has

checked hip hop for some time.


I've entertained the idea that I might just be getting

old. But if it's a function of my age that I remember

hip hop as the peoples champ, so be it. I was raised

on a vital art form that has now become a

computer-generated character doing the cabbage patch

in a commercial, or a comedian 'raising the roof.'


That's not influence to me, that's mockery. Hip hop my

friend, it's been a great 30 years filled with great

memories, and it's been fun to watch you grow. We've

got dozens of broke innovators and plenty of mediocre

millionaires out of the deal, but I really need my

space now and we've got to go our separate ways. I

will always love you, but it's time for me to move on.



TIGHT ARTICLE. ON POINT IN WAYS...

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