I went home with those conversations ringing nightmarishly in my head. I locked myself in my room and looked at all my old vibe and the source magazines and started to cry. Instead of practicing an old and strange craft called journalism, something even to this day all too foreign to hip hop magazines, I had read article after article egging both sides on, hyping rumors, blowing events out or proportion, almost helping to orchestrate the east coast/west coast beef like kids circling around the school fight. That night I burned each and every last one of those magazines. I felt like a hunted animal and the rich kids who were hip hop fans the game wardens.
For a long time because of it, I hated ALL hip hop and it wasn’t until I was introduced to Mos Def and Talib Kwelil in college where my hatred began to curb and I had perspective on hip hop in general. Over the past 10 years, they (and to a slightly lesser extent, Common) have established themselves leaders in an intellectual hip hop vanguard; sophisticated, complex, conscious yet in a human way to connect with a listener and understanding of hip hop relationship as both a continuum and a break from the African American musical tradition. Both's greatest contribution has been the way they have linked spoken word and the muti-faceted narratives of the oral tradition to American music. Both's style have a connection to their individual selves, adding layers of depth to their artistic work: Kweli, gifted in metaphor and word play, runs a bookstore in Harlem, Def, adept in the dramatis personae of the MC, has become a quite accomplished actor, earning a well deserved Emmy nomination in HBO's something the lord made.
More than seeing Mos and Kweil it was seeing the multi-racial chorus of people who loved hip-hop and what it meant to their lives that softened my anger. Going to various shows with friends in Bellingham, Vancouver and Seattle showed me that there was a dynamic other than the abusive one I saw at both ends of the economic spectrum in Tacoma. These kids were younger than I was (I was a 24 year old freshman) but they had a humanity, sense of culture and worldview that was broad, and hip-hop meant something to them other than the racial nightmare it was to me.
I thought of that day last fall, when both men released their latest solo records. Mos and Talib have made some of the best records of the past decade regardless of genre, but any of the cash money millionaire clique will move more units in 6 weeks than each can do in an album. So the push has been made to make them accessible to the mainstream, to sell America’s most unsellable commodity, black male sophistication and intellect, to the TRL and 106th and park generation, who have never shown any interest for black culture or history but cant get enough of their Gangsta thugs. In a sense, it is understandable and admirable that both men want to get their message to the masses. There is a utopian essence to it: bring the good musical food to the people and they will want more. But what both men, especially Kweil, do is mess the recipe up in the process.
Article comments
1 - Eric Olsen
what an outstanding essay Robert! You are very thoughtful, knowledgable and articulate. Art is both representative and influential - this dichotomy/conflict has been argued since at least Aristotle
2 - Geek's Girl
Hip hip's influence spreads far and wide, right down to the bottom of Africa. There are a lot of people who need to read this, I am glad I have.
3 - Temple Stark
Indeed I'm a person, maybe about five years older (use to live in Gig Harbor and Kent) and - as a musical trip - my experience of and journey through hip-hop is very similar to yours (though Tupac was my thing and my appreciation for Biggie (who I'd barely heard of) grew after he died.
Both extremely sad as I still think Tupac was gifted far behind music and would have grown to be a very positive influence. And was to a certain extent already as he proved you could comercially portray yourself as a sensitive / smart black man without repercussions and still be successful. The Wu did that as well to a certain extent.
Mos Def is an inspiration and luckily a lot of people are tuned into that - just not "mainstream."
A lot of mainstream from Jay-Z to 50 Cent to Big Boi to the entire "G Unit" is one dimensional. That doesn't mean they can't occasionally pop out the great sounding tracks, but the SOP behind them is sadly the same.
With Jay-Z, I had a special affinity for Annie (don't ask) so I was drawn in there. But the rest of that album was posturing, as if people really wanted to kill him 9or cared one way or the other) and he was setting himself up as a martyr.
Anyway - fantastic write up.
4 - Bennett
Thanks for this Robert. Though not my style of music, your essay was well worth reading, and I learned quite a bit.
Cheers!
5 - Miss Hipstah
Your comments on Hip Hop and the current state it is in are though provoking. I am a great fan of Mos Def and Talib Kweli, but sadly even their music has lost a bit of its edge in recent years.
Being in college and "academia", it made me think of the various classes which I have attended where a discussion of race was always paired with a discussion of Hip Hop. The constant need by mostly White students to talk about 50 Cent as a current figure of Black culture was, to a degree, sickening.
I wish some of the students in those classes could read what you wrote. Maybe then they'd actually learn something.
6 - Connie Phillips
Robert,
This was very thought provoking. Thank you for sharing your thoughts on this subject.
7 - Vern Halen
Thank you. You've articulated a lot of things that have always been unstated, and therefore unknown. Unfortunately, the people who need to read this article the most are most likely the people who'll never see it.