Irrefutably, the world would be a different place without hip hop. The synthesis of rap music along with the elemental presence of tagging, breaking/jitting/juking and fashion has already influenced a generation of children who are now adults.I have found it interesting to watch the maturing of the fathers (and mothers) of hip hop. While my friends and I were the first set of youth to grow up within popular rap culture, those who were gracing the world's stage - a generation ahead are now parents and, probably, grandparents.
With my peers I stand on the cusp between The Hip Hop Generation and the Post Hip Hop Generation.
What difference does it make? Well the impact of a single musical form is impacting (and being impacted by) every level of society -- from the popular culture of fashion and dance to the legal arena of litigation, laws and penal industry; from the spirituality and institution of religion and church worship to the power of both bottom-up activism and top-down politics. I cannot think of a single area of American (or Western life) that has not been touched by the hands of hip hop.
The question remains: what difference does it make?
The jury is still out.
Two of my favorite books on my bookshelves seek to answer that question. It's Bigger than Hip Hop by M. K. Asante, Jr and The Hip Hop Generation by Bakari Kitwana. Both books begin with the oft quoted message of Frantz Fanon:Each Generation out of relative obscurity must discover their mission, fulfill it or betray it.
Hip Hop is more than a form of music it is simultaneously an industry, a community, a culture and a movement. And we have found, in our globalized world, that hip hop has more than a singular mission. Could Hip Hop address activism without approaching politics? Could Hip Hop address incarceration without influencing education? Could Hip Hop impact music without impacting publishing, film or television.
We now know that the answer is no.
I wish every Black person in America could read each of these two books -- whether they listen to hip hop or not.
Is Hip Hop misogynistic? Yes, most of it. But, I have not heard any woman say that any prior generation was less misogynistic (Civil Rights included) -- perhaps Hip Hop is guilty of glorifying that which was once shameful, but was always both ever present and accepted.
Is Hip Hop minstrelsy? Unfortunately yes, too much of it. But Hip Hop is and will always be a reflection of the people. When we want Hip Hop to change, we will change our own families, our own schools, our own laws, our own churches/mosques and inevitably our own country.
Bakari Kitwana published The Hip Hop Generation at the beginning of the new millennium, new decade and M. K. Asante, Jr. published It's Bigger than Hip Hop at the close of the first decade. And much of the problems faced in both books are the same.
Poverty, Politics and Prisons.
Generation Gaps and Gender Divides.
While Asante talked with Hip Hop and the Ghetto, Kitwana explores AIDS and feminism as well. Asante and Kitwana are crucial pieces of the current American puzzle.
You cannot expect to find answer, if you cannot identify the problems. Asante and Kitwana, individually, discuss the problems and cite emcees, academics and authors who are exploring the depths of 21st century issues.
It matters not, what your socio-economic background is -- nor, your field of expertise. Everyone benefits from learning more about themselves, their community and their history. Please keep, Asante's "Two Sets of Notes for Black Students" close to heart.
from "Two Sets of Notes for Black Students"
I find myself feeling
As I am 'pon the ground & ceiling,
In institutions that disengage from healing
Instead, they simply warp open wounds
& Entrap me in rooms
where I am consumed by hypocrisy
& It occurs to me:
Greek philosophers didn't author their own philosophy
&The statues on campus be watchin' me
Washington... Jefferson... Williams,
Clockin' me--
As if to say 'time's up'
But I don't run laps on tracks
I run laps around the scholars of tomorrow
Because new schools of thought
Are merely our histories borrowed
& The label me militant, and black national radical,
trying to put my learning process on sabbatical.
I don't apologize,
Instead I spit truth into the whites of eyes infected by
white lies.
They even try to get me to see--
Their point of view from a brother that looks like me,
but that brother don't--
walk like me
talk like me
or
act like me
and that brother turned his head
when I asked if he was
black like me
Mastering their thoughts and forgetting our own
and we wonder why we always feel alone,
from the media to academia--
hanging brothers like coats
and in their schools....
I always take two sets of notes,
one set to ace the test
and
one set I call the truth,
and when I find historical contradictions
I use the first set as proof-
proof that black youths'
minds are being--
polluted,
convoluted,
diluted,
not culturally rooted.
In anything
except the Western massacre
and most of us are scared of Africa,
we view our mother's land
Through the eyes of David Hume and Immanuel Kant
well
Immanuel kan't tell me anything about a land he's never
seen
a land rich with history
beautiful kings and queens.
They'll have you believe otherwise
their history is built on high-rise lies
the pyramids were completed
before Greece or Rome were conceptualized,
the they'll claim the Egyptians' race was a mystery
you tell them to read Herodotus Book II of the histories
it cannot be any clearer....
Black children
look in the mirror
you are the reflection of divinity
don't let them fool you with selective memory
walk high,
listen to the elders who spoke
Black Students
Always take two sets of notes.
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