Dear Editor,Anyone with a working knowledge of the history of hip-hop would know that it was officially pronounced dead on Dec. 12, 2006, with the release of Nas’ Hip Hop Is Dead.

The Viewpoint article in the Nov. 8 issue of the East Tennessean attempting to define “real hip-hop,” consequently, is little more than a confusion of terms and outdated news, founded on obliviousness.

The most important distinction to be made today is the one that exists between hip-hop and rap.

The easiest technique is to first define modern hip-hop. Basically, anything you hear on the radio, on television or in a club is hip-hop: music that is primarily for dancing and has painfully repetitive, insipid lyrics.

The music enthusiasts mentioned in the article should know better than to stand expectantly before this vapid form of entertainment.

Rap, on the other hand, refers to the songs that rarely make it to the mainstream because they require a level of interpretive investment that the general public doesn’t care to imbue their daily listening with.

Essentially, you’re not going to find good rap unless you’re willing to look for it.

While it is self-empowering to claim that the “cries of this generation” are more difficult to put into words than those of previous generations, it is erroneous.

Rappers such as Kid Cudi and Lupe Fiasco are speaking to their generations fluently, albeit via techniques vastly different from – though still evolved from – those originated in the 1970s.

I don’t listen to modern hip-hop either; it’s garbage. Ninety-five percent of the music I listen to, however, is rap, and I am educated enough to know the difference between the two before ignorantly lumping criticism.

Regardless of how familiar you are with the topic, trust me when I say that you, too, should want Weezy freed.

-Mark Hogstrom

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