there's been a lot of bullshit, for lack of a better term, posted recently about hip-hop. the shit you hear on commercial radio *does not* represent what true hip-hop is or what it was when it was first created. there are plenty of hip-hop artists- in fact countless- who make excellent, quality, deep, meaningful, intelligent, amazing music- whether using live instruments or performing mind-boggling scratches and mixes on the turntables and creating original beats. the crap that passes for hip-hop on commerical radio, mtv, bet, and so on, is modern blacksploitation: a simulacra of the 'big bad black man' stereotype, ultra-hyped, packaged, and mass-marketed by white-owned multi-billion dollar corporations and sold back in this highly commercialized, bastardized form to the very people who created it, along with white suburban kids (who now account for some 80% of hip-hop music purchases) trying to get a vicarious high off of 'being down with the niggas'.
a vibrant culture created by poor and working-class youth of color (much of which was directly and indirectly subversive) has been trashed and largely discredited in 'mainstream' circles, and rightly so- if the shit you hear on commercial radio and tv is all you know about hip-hop. of course, it's not profitable for sony and viacom to play black people rap about how they are proud of themselves and their history, or about organizing the poor for a revolution. that shit dont fly with timmy and brad in the suburbs, and sadly it doesnt fly with most black kids in the ghetto who have been so infused with the corporate-rap ideals that one has to be maximally macho, mysoginist, homophobic and materialistic to be a 'real man'. so of course such things aren't played on the formats that 99% of people commonly listen to/watch. anyway, i'm rambling now, but i would recommend the following links for the curious:
http://www.conscioushiphop.com/
http://www.hieroglyphics.com/main.shtml
http://www.sarahjonesonline.com/
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=19990726&s=19990726ards
oh yea, my signature comes from south asian (/british) hip hop group 'asian dub foundation' <http://www.asiandubfoundation.com/>
-- With your liberal minds You patronise our culture Scanning the surface like vultures With your tourist mentality we're still the natives You're multicultural but we're anti-racist -asian dub foundation