Keepin' Heads on Straight

A recent post on hiphopdx.com touches on the subject of death to Conscious Rap. You know the type of Hip Hop major labels and mass media attempted to market as an opponent to the Hip Hop that has dominated the charts the past 15 years…THAT conscious rap.

The post suggests that conscious rap is dead. It makes mention that conscious rap was, ‘at worst, corny and heavy-handed with the messages’. The post also notes that ‘being conscious always seemed like a cop out for artists who didn’t have crossover appeal’. It suggests that ‘maybe the best thing to ever happen within the last 15yrs is that mainstream emcees learned to integrate any socio-political agendas within their bars’. I get what he’s saying; I just have a difference of opinion.

And it goes a little something like thiiiis, hit it:

Hip Hop in the last 15yrs, and its success certainly has obstructed our views of reality. For entertainment purposes, and primarily revenue, Hip Hop has created images that appeal to a broad audience (mainstream mofo’s). An audience who has always been shits and giggles over images and portrayals of sex, drugs and violence. Hip Hop dove head first into the media machine and went along with spreading these images far and wide. Soon it would begin to limit its expression to ONLY sex, drugs and violence (not always in that order), with few exceptions.

I’m not in opposition to music that isn’t labeled conscious, and I definitely don’t suggest that other types of Hip Hop aren’t in some way valuable. What I am saying is Hip Hop has never had an issue with good, bad, right or wrong. Our issue has, and always will be, honesty. And whether or not the individual artist is righteous enough to make what he/she wants to make without compromising who they are. Money made it a whole lot easier to compromise, which has clearly been a huge part in the demise of Hip Hop and American culture in general. When the priorities shift from people to profit, everyone suffers in the long term…even those who profit most.

Hip Hop and the people who were in control of the music began to pander to the audience that was buying the most product. Simple business…give the people buying, what they want. Sorry for the Hip Hop community, we weren’t the ones buying the most product (due to many factors, one of which is sheer numbers). Mainstream was. Coke, Nike and everyone else came calling and Hip Hop was unable to deny the potential profitability. Business, nothing personal…

If conscious hip hop is dead then what remains? Does what remains HAVE to be accepted by Hip Hop culture? Does it meet the needs of the Hip Hop community? Does it advance the culture or place any level of accountability (blog about accountability coming soon) back into the consciousness of the people?

We talk a lot about Hip Hop in terms of it’s entry to, and acceptance from the mainstream. We talk about the music and the culture as if it no longer belongs to us. It is still ours. We acknowledge that people the world over have embraced it, been entertained by it, adopted its style and language, but at the end of the day we remain its foundation and rightful owners. Mainstream media doesn’t have Hip Hop’s best interest at heart. Their objective is, and has been, to blindly consume without regard to the context in which Hip Hop sees itself. People who consider themselves mainstream are trying NOT to be mainstream (e.g. listening to Hip Hop), while Hip Hop has been doing all it can to become mainstream. How much sense does that make? None…

The only thing Hip Hop needs is balance. Representation’s of the entire community. How crazy is it that the type of music we’ve come to believe is responsible for communicating messages of hope, encouragement, peace and unity has been given a death certificate? If this is true, then where does that leave us? Who do we turn to for support? What else do we have if not our connections thru Hip Hop? If this is true then we would have failed ourselves, and failed to provide sustainable images and solutions to the problems that plague us as a community.

Funny how the images forced onto Hip Hop, because they were mainstream successes, aren’t images that equal success, happiness or prosperity in real life. Not only do those images forced onto Hip Hop limit opportunities for success, they limit health and happiness too. Violence…leads to your death, the death of another person or someone going to jail…fail. Sex…feels great, but when done with no regards for protection, leads to fatherless/motherless children, children having children, STD’s and/or AIDS and a generation of kids with fewer and fewer opportunities…fail. Drugs…smoke a blunt, understood. Selling cocaine as your only avenue for success or advancement, and things won’t end up pretty…fail. Money…everyone needs it and would be happy to have it, but it should not be and can not be the sole purpose in anything that you do…fail.

In the case of Hip Hop, there is no need for one type of Hip Hop to die in order for another to emerge or even be successful. Any and every voice should be heard because they all are valuable. But when the messages fail to do anything but glorify a life that doesn’t result in wealth, health or happiness how is it that a good thing for Hip Hop?

Peace