Many fans of Hip-Hop, if not most, have a moment, or a time in their life, where they fell in love with the genre forever. For me, it was the night that J. Cole released 2014 Forest Hills Drive, an instant classic of a Hip-Hop album with elite lyricism, vivid storytelling and a timeless spirit to it which touched me at my core. To say it simply, I saw myself, a young black Freshman on a Big 10 campus where he felt out of place, reflected throughout the album. J. Cole provided me with a soundtrack that met me at the perfect intersection of time and space. Whether it was songs about losing your virginity, dealing with the omnipresent threat of violence, navigating romance or simply being that nigga, I saw life presented in the way that I experienced it and what was most important was that not once in the entire album did J. Cole apologize for his story.
Of course, I had heard Hip-Hop music since as early in my life as I can remember. My father has an enviable collection of old CDs’ which range from the Motown's greatest hits, to Prince, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Parliament Funkadelic, TLC, Snoop Dogg, Dr. Dre, Tupac, Ice Cube, the Notorious B.I.G., Koolio and even the Quad Cities DJ's (something y'all def gotta check out). Some of my earliest memories are of he and I jamming to tracks like California Love, Today Was a Good Day and Gin 'n Juice which are to this day some of my favorite songs. However, growing up in Des Moines where I wasn't exposed to the creation of Hip-Hop - whether it be fashion, music, dance or visual art - I didn't come to understand what Hip-Hop was until I was a young adult. Until 2014 FHD captured my imagination Hip-Hop to me was an accumulation of sounds and lyrical forms; Hip-Hop was looped beats with a variety of high hats, 808s and baselines combined with clever rhymes called raps, many times which painted pictures of everyday scenes or sometimes wholesale stories. I had never thought about this genre, or really any genre of art, as a means of producing meaning. It had never occurred to me that truth was being explored or even created in the process of making Hip-Hop music and culture. But as J. Cole's iconic album ended, I found myself listening to Love Yourz and I got a feeling in my stomach, something like excited butterflies, that I was experiencing a version of the world that I had never been exposed to before. One where I, and others like me, could escape what seemed like rigid and inescapable truths in life by entering a world of possibilities limited only by my will and imagination. So, picture freshman Matt in his cramped dorm room, empowered by his newly formed sociological imagination, frantically searching the web for an explanation of what he had just experienced. The first thing he does is search J. Cole. He's heard his other albums before (Born Sinner and Sideline Story) but it becomes quickly apparent that the rest of the world is hailing the new album as J. Cole's best, an instant classic and possibly the piece that launches him into the "greatest rapper alive" conversation. Soon he finds that there's this robust discussion on twitter of the great Hip-Hop albums of this generation, which makes Matt ask; how are Hip-Hop albums judged? Wait, what is Hip-Hop? Well these questions aren't easily answered. One must do a considerable amount of research; a combination of reading endless amounts of theories about the genre and also spending hours on hours of time combing the internet for music, searching for moments where artists hit that sweet spot and paint vivid pictures of their world and possible worlds yet to be experienced. This project, starting in the fall of 2014, lasts through winter all the way into spring of 2015. In this time, he discovers Chance the Rapper's Acid Rap, Talib Kweli and Mos Def's Black Star, the ENTIRE Outkast catalog, Lupe Fiasco's Food and Liquor (parts 1 and 2) and Schoolboy Q's Oxymoron. He also begins consuming unrealistic amounts of Hip-Hop theory; from KRS-One's lectures on the definition and origins of Hip-Hop, to Michael Eric Dyson and Tricia Rose's ongoing scholarly dialogue, to Funk Master Flex and DJ Cool Herk's recollections of the birth of the Hip-Hop, Matt even scours Netflix for any documentaries or series on this urban culture. And then, it happens. Kendrick Lamar drops To Pimp A Butterfly. Now, up to this point I was a J. Cole fan and had been since Sideline Story (even though as I've said I rediscovered what rap meant to me along the way). However, Kendrick Lamar had been an up and coming star ever since my late years in Highschool and the entire world seemed to be buzzing with anticipation of his sophomore album. To paint a clear picture, Black people, especially young adults, were in a deep cycle of politicization and radicalization due to the litany of unjustifiable police murders. Liberation politics were what we fed our souls on, and Lamar's TPAB seemed to meet the pro-black, old-school Hip-Hop, liberation warrior right in the middle of historical appreciation and creative innovation. It was an album the world was asking for, but not necessarily ready for. To a young Matt it was, more than any other single piece of art before or since, the most impressionable experience of his lifetime. That album gave me a way to understand politics, life, racism, struggle, God and my own spirituality that will stick with me probably until the day I physically leave this world. It was intellectual, it was diligent, it was incredibly courageous. It was like the perfect sonic novel to which I could (and still do) go back to explain pretty much any theory about Black life. Why the long-winded intro? Because we must define Hip-Hop and its identity to make the claim it's in a state of crisis. The definition I crudely came across in that time which I have continued to stick with is this: Hip-Hop describes an urban culture which formed in the mid-1970s Bronx mostly by youth of African descent which stood on 4 pillars. They are DJing, Emceeing, Breaking (or Breakdancing) and Graffiti. Many would argue that there is a 5th pillar, knowledge, the creation of which is the overall goal of Hip-Hop. Perhaps an extended definition would go on to explain how fashion and slang became fundamental aspects of this culture, and even that things like Social Media and technological innovation have become inseparable from Hip-Hop cultural production. Fine. Some would argue that breaking has been replaced by other forms of dance associated with Hip-Hop music. Others will note that it is crucial to remember that Hip-Hop’s formations are linked to the decay of America’s urban centers. Cool. But this basic definition is important because it describes Hip-Hop at its core, it's fundamental beginning, which is a culture based not just on a type of music, but instead of the mastery of certain forms of expression. These forms of expression took place simultaneously in urban spaces, many times overlapping each other. What emerged was an extremely rapid growth of this grassroots culture which accommodated massive amounts of largely Black urban youths who had been disenfranchised by the politics of neoliberalism and urban renewal. These kids now had a new rhythm to rock to, one that championed their own individuality, talents and thirst free expression. Hip-Hop in many ways captured the free spirit of resistance and liberation by allowing creative avenues for an increasingly distressed population. The result in the first two decades of the genre was a type of street culture that is so diverse in its narratives, images, stories, themes, motifs and representations of Black life that I honestly don't believe, unless you were there to experience it, there's any way we could truly imagine it today. Contrary to popular belief, women, although obviously experiencing forms of sexism, were greatly empowered by this new form of expression. This was clear in certain sections of the culture more than others. Emceeing, for example, offered Black women a form of vocal expression not necessarily centered on beauty, grace or sexuality, but allowed them to show off their intellect, creativity, humor, aggressiveness and nuance. They were also empowered in many ways by breaking, which rejected male and female roles in dance which forms such as swing jazz subscribed to, as well the fashion which was largely unisex in its designs and forms. Women didn't have to dress sexy or graceful in a world where everybody was "fly". And largely throughout the culture there would have been a variety of narratives on Black life which implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) rejected the racial stereotypes that America desired and replaced them with diverse images of Black life; street scholars, 5 percenters, Black Nationalists, regular schoolboys and schoolgirls, pompous performers, gangsters, drug dealers, creative geniuses, aliens from inner and outer space and those who were just plain fly. However, something changed the course of Hip-Hop forever and put us into a state, as I will argue, of modern day identity crisis. That something is this; Hip-Hop was successful, more successful than any of its founders and pioneers could have ever imagined. Not enough scholarship exists on this time, but around the end of the 80s through the mid-2000s Hip-Hop saw an explosion of commercial success and mainstream exposure which obviously changed the culture forever. DJs, MCs, and anybody else with talents that could be monetized went from local heroes to worldwide stars, from disenfranchised youth to virtually overnight millionaires in many cases. Of course, this is an expedited history, but the combination of cultural novelty, policies created by the government and major labels (pretty much the same entity) such as the Telecommunications Act of 1994 which centralized Hip-Hop making it easier to control and drive a profit from, and America's thirst for subconscious racial imagery fueled boom in the production of Hip-Hop. In this rush to capitalize on this new cultural craze, the images which were being sold across the world changed for a few reasons. First, was the new audience. As Hip-Hop became more popular its population became less poor and very notably less Black (today 70% of the audience is white). This resulted in certain images which fit America's racial paradigms; Black people mainly as violent, criminal, hypersexual and materially obsessed, thus forming what Tricia Rose call's the holy trinity of rap, gangstas, pimps and hos. Also, the point of production changes radically. Hip-Hop music is created less and less in local arenas such as basketball courts and street corners which are largely impromptu, free form and not for profit and more and more in corporate sponsored studios where creative control ultimately rests with the sponsors of the projects; record labels. This results in a culture who's main goal is no longer to express but to sell. This does not stop at the rappers and producers. No! It implicates every one of us. I argue that every person who considers themselves a part of this culture, especially Black people, are in large part involuntary participants in a constant marketing campaign to sell commodified forms of Blackness to the world. Our dances are made into emotes on Fortnite or co-opted by the likes of pop acts such as Miley Cyrus. Our hair styles are appropriated and diluted by models both at agencies and on social media. Our language and cultural symbols are mimicked by pretty much everybody. Our bodies are literally being reconstructed via plastic surgery to fit the images popularized by rappers. More than that, the ways in which Black people can express themselves through this form have narrowed. This is because we could express ourselves in an infinite amount of variations. But America's appetite for racial imagery is confined to a limited set of preferences. This has created an echo chamber of identical narratives coming from almost the entire industry. Black people as violent, drug dealing and/or consuming, hypersexual and intensely materialistic. Of course, there are black people who fit those descriptions, but certainly not as a monolith. And when we look at most images of women they not only are confined to these roles, but subordinated versions of them at that. Think about this; is it a coincidence that the two megastar female MCs of the last decade, Nicki Minaj and Cardi B, have capitalized on performances of themselves which center their sexuality, wealth and capacity for violence? These images are stark contrasts to those put forth by female MCs such as Lady of the Rage, Queen Latifah, MC Lyte, Missy Elliot, Bahamadia or Medusa who defined themselves through the lenses of creativity, intellect, spirituality and lyrical potency. That’s not to say that artists such as Eve and Lil Kim did not coexist with these women, but it does suggest that the avenues of expression for Black women in Hip-Hop have suffered from a severe contraction. This same theory can be applied to the avenues of expression for men in the genre. While there exists more autonomy relative to women, men are for the most part celebrated for their capacity for violence, controlling women and accumulating and spending cash. Of course, there are artists like J. Cole, Wale, Chance the Rapper or Kendrick Lamar who express themselves as valuable because of their ability to move people with their minds and hearts. But for the most part these acts stand out starkly from the pack if not for the fact that their representations of self are exceptions to the status quo. So if this pattern has existed for so long, why is it only now that we find ourselves in a crisis of identity? That crisis can only occur if the psyche is battling over two conflicted images of itself. In the age of #BlackLivesMatter Black people have demanded better for themselves in every arena of human experience. We have demanded that our lives, in their endless array of manifestations, be represented accurately in a meaningful way. Hip-Hop, in theory, should be the engine to create these images (which have only existed for temporary moments in time then disappear). Black people have embraced so many aspects of re-imagining themselves it's incredible to think about. There's been the natural hair movement, an increased awareness of Black entrepreneurship, self-love campaigns, Black nerds consolidating, a reawakening of Black feminism, new explorations of Black parenthood, the narrative of care-freeness especially among "flower-boys" not to mention the reemerging popularity of liberation politics. However, this wave of Black people across all ages who have become inspired to seek new possibilities for themselves have to mute that desire when they want to listen to Hip-Hop music. That's not to say that today there aren't artists who challenge the narrative I'm presenting with their music, or that there isn’t a nuanced discussion to be had about portraying the aspects of street life. However, for the large part, as progressive as Black culture has been in the past few years, Hip-Hop has simply failed to keep up. This becomes clear to me not only when I tune in every Friday to see what new music drops, but when I read articles on Hip-Hop sites or watch shows which are supposed to capture Hip-Hop culture in today's day in age. I simply find myself shocked at the levels of disconnect which seem to exist daily. I was once a fan of the show "Everyday Struggle", a twitter/youtube product which attempts to hit at the desires of internet fans to hear from cultural "experts". But the more I watch the show the more I see that the panelists struggle mightily connecting to the everyday viewer because even at Complex, which is relatively new, the Hip-Hop industry is just so far removed from people on the ground. The show, in my opinion, has yet to develop an identity for itself after nearly two years on the air, and the members of the show spend most of their time indulging gossip and giving their opinions on albums and their commercial success rather than combing through all the aspects of Hip-Hop culture and its impact on people's lives. I also watch "State of the Culture" which is produced by Puff Daddy's Revolt production company, and again I am just taken aback at the conversations which pop up. Where Remy Ma says that she doesn't care if non-black people say nigga and defends Bill Cosby. Or where Joe Budden defends Post Malone, who literally went from being in a metal garage band to switching over to Hip-Hop, dressing himself up as a caricature of Black rappers, making rap music and millions of dollars from it, then telling Hip-Hop publications that he doesn't want to be considered a rapper or a Hip-Hop artist. And this is on a show that is being hailed as possibly the best show on Hip-Hop culture to date. The problems with Hip-Hop journalism is just as glaring as the music, it fails to recognize any Hip-Hop culture outside of that of popular gossip and commercial production. In other words, if it ain't trending or doesn't make money it really isn't Hip-Hop (according to the journalists). The cognitive dissonance goes further than that. We have failed to identify what Hip-Hop music and culture even is anymore. We allow artists who clearly don't want to be labeled as Hip-Hop and certainly don't care about its principles and history to continually benefit from our outlets, platforms and resources. We have failed to adequately cultivate organic spaces for Hip-Hop creation outside of the commercial machine. We've allowed the tradition of the MC to become completely marginalized in the culture. We have allowed the production of music to be confined to what the industry defines as best practice, and our interactions with our favorite artists are mostly limited to their marketing roll outs for projects and for their personal brand. We've failed to control the means of production of our culture, nor do we have any say in where the money goes. Many days it feels to me as if Black people aren't in control of the current climate of Hip-Hop. As Nick Cannon said on Everyday Struggle, "Hip-Hop today is the WWE. It's totally fake." I believe that if you look closely you can see a crisis brewing. One where one of our legends is giving monologues in the oval office and hugging a despotic president. One where rappers are activists one day and then politically destructive the next. One where cultural commentators don't comment on the lives of everyday people. One where people are being inspired to participate in the culture less and less, not just in rapping but in DJing, producing, fashion, graffiti, dance, scholarship, history, etc. We are in a moment where there is little clear direction as to where we are heading, or even, any clear idea of where we are in the world. There are so many things Black people are dealing with, and people across all spectrums of experience, that Hip-Hop just fails at representing. If this is supposed to be our form of creating knowledge about ourselves and the world, we are in large part failing. The result is that we hardly recognize ourselves when we look into the mirrors many days. We claim to hold certain values based on racial ideas of pride and solidarity, but our culture has failed us in providing a way to bring those values into the world. The result is a reality kind of like constantly seeing a reflection of yourself that has clearly beem distorted. Perhaps Hip-Hop will survive this crisis, for it is only created by the awakening of Black people and will most likely end when this revival sort of period is over. Perhaps, on the other hand, a desire for an art form which is evolved enough to capture our desire for human freedom replaces Hip-Hop altogether. Either way, the issues that we deal with now in the culture will not go away just because the words "Hip-Hop" have. This crisis is something we will simply have to get through. I'll leave you with a corny sign off compliments of King Kunta; We gon' be alright!
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October 2018
Matt BruceViva DSM!! |