Hip-Hop…Two words that carry more meaning and roots that rival the oldest tree on planet earth. A culture that slowly cultivated even before its initial conception; through slavery up until the present, elements of hip hop have been around for centuries. Now, presently considered as one of the most popular genres of music of all time, the magnifying glass has grown to gargantuan proportions revealing more about its true nature; whether it be positive or negative. The public sphere nowadays however, has been primarily exposed to the latter. Since becoming popularized, hip-hop has become much of a scape goat for society’s troubles. Is this tied to racism? Who knows? Many speculate so. Whatever the reason may be, a lot of people who don’t understand the culture itself hold it responsible for the behavior of the younger generations that DO listen to it. Now why does this occur? Why does this genre of music endure more criticism than others? Is it because the majority of the entertainers in that business are “minorities”? The racism in America has become effectively institutionalized. If you don’t beleive me…Do some research through history, and I mean THOROUGH research and you will understand what I am talking about. The reason I put that out there is for this: Major Record Labels…. One of the main forces behind the commercial success of Hip-Hop today is because of the joint momentum between the creativity of the artists and the corporations who noticed this potential and acted quickly to market, sell and make it more profitable than it had ever been before. Now, on one side of the spectrum, this was tremendously good to see that Hip-Hop was finally getting world-wide recognition. But over time, exploitation became the ultimate motive in order to reach the bottom line. This issue has been a major topic of discussion within the hip-hop community for years on end. But it seems that at this current time, the culture appears to be in critical condition. To many, the market has been flooded with “minstrel” like musical acts( Click here: http://youtube.com/watch?v=UfCmYyG-yg4 for a primary example)….. A vicious reminder that history will find other ways and means to repeat itself even IF in the most minute of forms. Now this video represents more than just a good laugh or actual entertainment, this video represents the very thing that past and current African American political leaders, activists, and other prominent figures in African-American history have fought long and hard to rid their culture of: Caricatures. This artist may not have had the intention of doing any damage, but the evidence is clear, record labels are largely contributing to the decadence of hip-hop. I would like to shift the focus to a bold statement made by Nas. Nas, a critically acclaimed rapper outright stated in 2006 that Hip-Hop is Dead. At the time, the southern region of the United states was flourishing with hits in the hip-hop world and many people felt that his statement was aimed directly at those artists….Though this truly wasn’t the case, a lot of backlash came as a result. The true intention of that statement however, was not to offend, but to open the eyes of the general public. As most hip-hop heads know, some of the greatest lyricists to contribute to hip-hop are from the south; and like every other region in the U.S., you are going to get a lot of terrible contributors and you are going to find a few gems that change the game forever. So what was the purpose of this 1st entry? It was merely to stimulate your minds and hopefully generate some rhetorical questions within each of those who reads this. This is only Part One of the discussion
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