Hip Hop is Dead and there is no Rebirth
It is a sad state of affairs when the art of music becomes the art of destruction. A nice beat and thought provoking lyrics use to be the cornerstone of Hip Hop, now we have nice beats hijacked by terrible lyrics that shine a negative light on us. In public I am a fairly young man, some would say highly intelligent and of good moral standing. What is seen, however, is a thug who’s English is terrible, pants must be sagging, probably going to steal or kill, militant black person, whose sole objective is to mooch from the Government and spread an agenda of violence and depression. When I listen to some of the hip-hop of today and see the videos accompanying them, while some are entertaining most seem as if no intelligent thought went into it. What’s worse is it’s destroying young minds making them think that the garbage peddled in these videos and music is what’s right in the world.
What happened to rappers taking a stand, being socially conscious, having intelligent lyrics backed by a nice beat, creating a rhythm that moves a people onto a positive path? I’m ashamed to go in public as a black man, for fear of being labeled as a young degenerate and it’s all because of this destructive blasphemy called Hip Hop today. This isn't hip hop it is ashes of a former greatness being mixed with the dirt of irrelevance. Nas was right when he said Hip Hop is Dead, it is dead and there is no rebirth. Glorifying the hood, drugs and the like isn't representative of actual hood life because we want to get as far away from that life as possible.
Being a product of poverty, hood, ghetto and street, the influence was around, the songs they so thoughtlessly produce is a reality we strive to get away from, well some of us at least. We shouldn't want our image in the world to be what is portrayed in those songs. As if we needed anything else to make life harder, producing crap and calling it music and branding it as Black Culture isn't the right way to go about things.
I’m focusing on the hip hop community, but there are many instances where we purposely misrepresent ourselves in public. We act exactly the way they want us to like puppets in a bad play. We shuck and jive for a few pennies and go to sleep soundly at night. We don’t think of the young, impressionable minds we've just destroyed. We make a dangerous drug like “Molly” seems like the cool thing to do, when in reality that little pill contains the purest form of ecstasy (MDMA) among other things like cocaine, heroin and etc. We make the act of sagging seem cool when in reality it comes from the prison culture of sexual invitation.
As a lover of music, I am asking for Hip Hop to do better. You were the torch bearer for many in the younger generation until your socially conscious words turned into mainstream garbage. You've infected this new generation with drug abuse, disrespect, and no self-respect. We want a rebirth, but until the music gets better you’ll remain dead to many and buried into a troubled and bottomless grave of irrelevance.
Save Hip Hop!
Tony L. Jefferson, Jr. 2013
Hip Hop didn't make you ashamed of who you are. There's a deep history of shame against the Black man in our culture beginning with slavery. The "inferior" Black man myth has been perpetuated for centuries. Blacks have a history of taking that which is meant to harm us and trying to own it and turn it into something without the sting. (e.g. The "N" word) Hip Hop is an example of a subculture of Blacks taking that which is meant to break us (drugs, the myths of the oversexualized black man and women, etc) and turning it into something without the sting. A people can "own" the oppression, or break under it. Hip Hop is a just another leaf in the tomes of what was meant to bring us down.
ReplyDeleteYou are correct Stephanie, i'm not ashamed of who i am, but i am mainly concerned with our place in the world. I want us to progress past the things that oppress us, not glamorize it and reintroduce it to a society that created the perpetual sting of hatred. I am a lover of Hip Hop, but the current trend is not responding to the issues of being Black in America, they are creating more problems. I like your point of view and welcome more correspondence. Thanks for visiting my little corner of the internet, lol.
ReplyDelete