What Is Hip Hop???

 

Time and time again I hear rappers say “fuck Hip Hop” as if they’re apart of some other lifestyle or something. It used to really piss me off, but now I’m over it. For rappers to say fuck Hip Hop is like me walking to my grandmother’s or father’s grave and pissing on it, as if they’re doing what they do in spite of instead of BECAUSE OF this lifestyle.

For the record, Hip Hop is NOT just the music!!!! Hip Hop is the ideology that you can make something out of little to nothing as long as you have the mind and imagination to create it. Graffiti came from the minds of people who had the talent and imagination to paint remarkable pictures but not the money for paints and easels, so they made the walls and trains their easels and cheap cans of spray paint their brushes. The B-Boy and B-Girl were some of the most imaginative dancers around, but could not afford to go to those prestigious dance institutions to fine tune their craft, so they used each other through battles as a barometer to measure how good they were. This also served as an alternative to violence as a means of settling issues both big and small.

The DJ was and still is the backbone to the lifestyle, providing the soundtrack through cutting and scratching the breakdowns of Soul, Funk, Disco, Rock, Reggae, and even Punk records while the B-Boys and Girls showed off their moves and the Graf artists unveiled new portraits. The MC was the 1st Hypeman, as his job was simply to tell how dope the DJ, Dancers, and Artists were. Soon though they themselves evolved into the voice of the lifestyle, or Rappers. The rapper was able to put the mindset of the movement into words, from hyping the party through call and response, to bragging about their abilities to rhyme, get girls, and money, to addressing society’s ills, to making us aware that Black Culture runs deeper than what mainstream media was putting out. The Rapper became the focal point of Hip Hop, and like lots of stars, started thinking that they were the entire show instead of a part of the show.

Of course corporate America saw dollar signs and proceeded to invest into the movement, at first by incorporating the Dance aspect, now called “Breakdancing”, and showcasing it in pop music videos and movies, using the DJ, Graf Artist and Rappers in similar fashion by pairing them with mainstream artists like Herbie Hancock, Blondie, and Chaka Khan to cash in on the newness of the phenomena. As the movement grew, major record labels started snapping up the indie record labels that specialized in rap music, throwing tons of money at artists like Kurtis Blow, Run-DMC, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys in the process. More and more people wanted to be a part of the movement and found new ways to get the word out, be it through specialized radio and video shows, promoting concerts, and starting magazines that focused solely on Hip Hop.

As the Rap Music branch of the Hip Hop tree grew stronger, the other branches became marginalized to back burner status. The DJ had to fight with label reps who had started to not press vinyl copies of rap albums, which would have killed off the movement had DJs not stepped up and made them aware of the importance of vinyl to it. The dancers and graf artists eventually broke through barriers in the mainstream art and dance worlds and still thrive today.

The Rapper is by far the star player on the team these days, but some feel that they don’t belong to the movement. That’s that bullshit that irritates me, without the roots, you have no tree. In no other form of music is the disrespect for what gave life to its present form more evident than in Hip Hop. Young Rock artists pay homage to the Blues roots that birthed Rock N Roll, Jazz artists pay homage to the Big Band and BeBop artists who came before them, R&B artists pay homage to the Soul singers who paved the way, yet some Rappers feel they not only owe those who came before them, they take the time to shit on the entire entity of which, whether they like it or not, they are apart of.

In closing, I wanna say that as long as you rap, whether you are good or awful, you are Hip Hop. If you feel differently, maybe it’s time for you to pursue something else, because there is NO ROOM FOR SELF HATE here!!!!