In its infancy, and at its best, hip-hop was a tool of expression. It gave voice to the voiceless. It was a platform through which oppressed classes could redress their grievances. It was more than elementary rhymes written sloppily on a sheet of notebook paper and recited over a dope beat to make a quick buck.
What we hear over airwaves and watch on music videos is not real hip-hop. It is merely a cheap, obnoxious imitation.
And it is just like anything else that is mass-produced. After awhile, in the assembly-line monotony of it all, the quality is lost.
It becomes devoid of message. Much of it is defective, incapable of producing its intended result.
But rappers aren’t the only ones to blame. Avid listeners no longer hold hip-hop accountable. We don’t require that rappers render anything of substance to the microphone.
And because we’ll pay for everything, they’ll give us anything.
To some, this is an indication of our generation’s lack of appreciation for music as an art form.
To me, the lack of artistic talent in today’s hip-hop indicates the exact opposite.
As a generation, we have just as much to say as generations before us. We have just as much to request of our leaders. We have just as much at stake in the changes our world is experiencing.
The lack of artistic ability in our faint-hearted version of hip-hop shows just how hungry we are, searching desperately for the ways to quench our thirst for knowledge but always coming up short.
The desolate cries of this generation are so much harder to condense into word form.
And we music enthusiasts stand in expectancy before the throne of modern hip-hop with our hands outstretched, hoping that there is something there that can satisfy us.
Looking for something that can articulate the words that we are too weak, or too poor, or too lost to say.
I am certain that this generation has more to request of hip-hop rappers than that they ‘teach us how to dougie’.
Today someone can just be a rapper. But in its infancy, hip-hop was more than an art form. It was a movement. And its leaders were not just rappers but revolutionaries.
Before it was a market for corporate label owners or a get-rich-quick scheme for downtrodden rapper wannabes, it was a social revolution.
And the micriophone was reserved for those who really had something to say.
Hip-hop, in its most organic form, could be compared to Pal’s. It was local.
And the hard-core dedicated fans would travel far and wide just to get a taste.
You couldn’t find it everywhere because it was original. And that was the point.
Today, hip-hop is like McDonald’s.
You can get it anywhere and no matter where you get it, it’s all the same.
There is no variety. There is no distinction. There is no diversity. And that is the point.
Today’s hip-hop is so synthetic, enhanced with god-forsaken auto-tune, synthesizers and automated beats.
The message here is clear. So much more is added to the mix because in its pure, organic form, it is not good enough,
Before hip-hop revolutionaries had an opportunity to rap over beats, they rapped over silence. No preservatives. No additives.
What we download on iTunes is not hip-hop.
Real hip-hop cannot be bottled up, duplicated and shipped to the masses.
Our generation is still living off of the contributions of revolutionary leaders like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Ghandi.
What separated them from all the look-alikes in the world is the fact that they had the courage to say what countless others were too afraid to say.
And they said it so eloquently and with such authority that their voices could not be escaped.
They were ahead of their time, and willing or not, the world experienced the intensity of their existence.
Hip-hop has failed to fulfill its revolutionary calling of being different in a world of conformity.
Rather, it has created its own culture of conformers.
So often I’m asked why I don’t listen to today’s hip-hop.
I used to grapple with my response until I saw a T-shirt that read “Free Weezy.” Now my answer is simple and direct, “Because today’s hip-hop has nothing to say to me.
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