"Hiphop Amalgamated"
For those of us who’ve been Hiphop for more than twenty years, we often find ourselves looking down at the culture as it moves away from individuality and towards an amalgamation of corporate interest and “Street Values”. I started listening to Hiphop music in the early 80’s and haven’t stopped since. Most white guys who listen to Hiphop now didn’t listen to Hiphop in the “Golden Era” of the late 70’s to the mid 80’s. I should know, I was one of that unpopular minority and got to experience the backlash of the “normal” white kids whose interest was primarily occupied by listening to nothing but Rock or Metal, wearing Neon outfits and riding skate boards. Often the use of the “N-Word” would be thrown around as casually as a large red ball at the fat kid during a game of Dodge Ball regarding their opinions of the music I listened to.
Not to say, however, that I never listened to Rock and the occasional Metal band from time to time… I like “The Who” and “Rage Against The Machine”, but you wouldn’t find their CD’s in my personal collection. Not because I believe that the music these artists produce is inherently lower in intellectual value than Hiphop music, but because to me it’s pretty damn grating on the nerves to listen to a white guy from a nice, upper-middle class family who live in a big house with a pool in a relatively crime-free area of the country (Fred Durst) screaming about how his girlfriend left him because he was an asshole in their relationship. Hiphop music is a form of music that infuses all of the varying forms of American music, such as Country, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Gospel and (sadly) even Disco. This form of music came from the first generation of American kids that had to raise themselves due to the fact that their parents either weren’t there due to working double-shifts at crappy jobs or because of the massive boom of divorces that occurred during the 70’s and 80’s.
My parents broke up as soon as I got out of intensive care at the hospital, and then my Mother divorced my first step-father in the late eighties, so as you can imagine… I might have been in the same boat as these guys. My mentality isn’t one of a white guy that wishes he grew up in a crappy neighborhood surrounded by gang members because I did experience that growing up. I already had the added incentive to listen to what I wanted to listen to because my Mother knew that I wouldn’t do whatever I heard on my favorite records (no matter how misogynistic or violent) due to the fact that she raised me well, to respect women and try to use violence as a last resort.
Now we have an entire generation of people who grew up listening to nothing but NWA, Easy-E, Too Short, Master P and, with the exception of NWA, the majority of these artists are cookie-cutter attempts at Hiphop music; solely focused on the aspects of life that are the most negative and detrimental to American society, which takes away from the spirit of Hiphop. Hiphop is about expression, as all forms of music are, but wasn’t intended for anything like what it is now. If you live in an extremely violent area of the world, you typically don’t maintain your sanity by focusing on the negative experiences in life, but instead you strive to remain positive in order to further grow as an adult. This attitude typically isn’t reflected in the Hiphop music that many people see videos on TV shows and hear on the local radio stations.
So what can be done if you love Hiphop and wish to support truly talented artists that struggle to remain individuals in a sea of worker-drone wannabe emcees? Going out to local shows, look for the underground artists on the internet and visiting other cities will probably help to expand your horizons. But that doesn’t stem the tide of untalented performers who only entered into the arena of Hiphop music on the premise of making lots of money off of stupid consumers who don’t know anything about real Hiphop, and couldn’t tell you who DJ Kool Herc and KRS-ONE are, but know Nelly’s favorite color, or 50 Cent’s aunt’s special seasoning for her home-made Buffalo Wings. I guess the only way to cure what ails Hiphop music is by going back to the early 80’s when there weren’t any Hiphop videos on the air, so we can re-boot an incredibly flawed system of checks and balances of crap versus quality. Maybe I'll write another post on just the artists that I like if you guys out there give me some input... keep it Hiphop, people.
Not to say, however, that I never listened to Rock and the occasional Metal band from time to time… I like “The Who” and “Rage Against The Machine”, but you wouldn’t find their CD’s in my personal collection. Not because I believe that the music these artists produce is inherently lower in intellectual value than Hiphop music, but because to me it’s pretty damn grating on the nerves to listen to a white guy from a nice, upper-middle class family who live in a big house with a pool in a relatively crime-free area of the country (Fred Durst) screaming about how his girlfriend left him because he was an asshole in their relationship. Hiphop music is a form of music that infuses all of the varying forms of American music, such as Country, Rock, Blues, Jazz, Gospel and (sadly) even Disco. This form of music came from the first generation of American kids that had to raise themselves due to the fact that their parents either weren’t there due to working double-shifts at crappy jobs or because of the massive boom of divorces that occurred during the 70’s and 80’s.
My parents broke up as soon as I got out of intensive care at the hospital, and then my Mother divorced my first step-father in the late eighties, so as you can imagine… I might have been in the same boat as these guys. My mentality isn’t one of a white guy that wishes he grew up in a crappy neighborhood surrounded by gang members because I did experience that growing up. I already had the added incentive to listen to what I wanted to listen to because my Mother knew that I wouldn’t do whatever I heard on my favorite records (no matter how misogynistic or violent) due to the fact that she raised me well, to respect women and try to use violence as a last resort.
Now we have an entire generation of people who grew up listening to nothing but NWA, Easy-E, Too Short, Master P and, with the exception of NWA, the majority of these artists are cookie-cutter attempts at Hiphop music; solely focused on the aspects of life that are the most negative and detrimental to American society, which takes away from the spirit of Hiphop. Hiphop is about expression, as all forms of music are, but wasn’t intended for anything like what it is now. If you live in an extremely violent area of the world, you typically don’t maintain your sanity by focusing on the negative experiences in life, but instead you strive to remain positive in order to further grow as an adult. This attitude typically isn’t reflected in the Hiphop music that many people see videos on TV shows and hear on the local radio stations.
So what can be done if you love Hiphop and wish to support truly talented artists that struggle to remain individuals in a sea of worker-drone wannabe emcees? Going out to local shows, look for the underground artists on the internet and visiting other cities will probably help to expand your horizons. But that doesn’t stem the tide of untalented performers who only entered into the arena of Hiphop music on the premise of making lots of money off of stupid consumers who don’t know anything about real Hiphop, and couldn’t tell you who DJ Kool Herc and KRS-ONE are, but know Nelly’s favorite color, or 50 Cent’s aunt’s special seasoning for her home-made Buffalo Wings. I guess the only way to cure what ails Hiphop music is by going back to the early 80’s when there weren’t any Hiphop videos on the air, so we can re-boot an incredibly flawed system of checks and balances of crap versus quality. Maybe I'll write another post on just the artists that I like if you guys out there give me some input... keep it Hiphop, people.
posted by Todd Tobin at 7:40 AM
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