Turn Hip Hop Into Less Hype & More Hope
July 1, 2010
By Brian S. Yeldell

As a person who has seen the beginning of hip hop and all of its different manifestations and permutations and people who have come and gone (can somebody say Orin Juice Jones, Vanilla Ice & Tonya Gardner?!?!?!), it is a good culture for young(er) people to embrace and have their voices heard. Music has always been good for that. People have something to say and they can reach a mass audience by putting messages to music and have it “go down” or digested a lot easier than, say, a speech or a book or a poetry sessions or even a lesson at school. Music allows people to hear what you have to say and if they like it, they will listen and begin reciting it over and over and over again. Unfortunately, there has been some negativity associated with rap and hip hop. Some of it has been deserved and some of it, not, at least in my opinion. One way or the other, let’s turn Hip Hop into less hype and more hope!
As I have gone down this odyssey over the last month and been made to think about and chronicle various forms of music, I have been made to think about the development and evolution of people…Black people, White people, Indian people, Hispanic people, all people. Because I think about progress and development as far as trying to better the human condition, music has made its way through all of life. Jazz is soothing and cool and the first true American contribution, from a music perspective. Funk was expressive in the late 70s and then, there are the ballads, which help people get through some of the pain and sorry, as well as giving understanding of many melancholy and love situations. Today, we have hip hop. It is a genre that is turning 30 years old. As a result, the artists have given us a look at their condition. As Chuck D once said, hip hop and rap is black CNN. Well, if you’re going to discuss the problem, you should try to seek the solution. So, I advocate that we try to turn hip hop into less hype and more hope.

It is rather fascinating that hip hop is thirty years old. Nobody 35 years old or older can forget “Rapper’s Delight” when it first was released in 1979, which, by all accounts, is the beginning. Now, TRUE aficionados will say, “man, what about this rapper or that rapper” from some far away or obscure “neighborhood” in the Bronx or Harlem? There is always going to be someone who did it before the commercial success of a song like “Rapper’s Delight.” Then, you are also going to have someone (probably smoking a joint…lol) to “beat you over the head” and say, “Dude, Gil Scott Heron or The Last Poets were rappin’ way before these young boys!” Well, they either didn’t have the following, the capital or the organization to take it to the masses. Or, frankly, the timing may not have been right. However, post civil rights, post –disco, pre-house, it was the right time and rap and hip hop began its explosion as the 70s were coming to an end.

My recollection of early rap and hip hop was that of fun music, in which DJs and MCs battled and made fun of each other….either through calling “fun” or joking names or talking about one’s ability or inability to rap or move the crowd. Every now and then, a guy and later, a woman, may even talk about somebody’s Momma. Again, it was all done lightly and for fun and to get and keep a party going. Fast forward through the 80s, it started taking a grittier turn with songs like “The Message.” Artists wanted to talk about theirs, as well as others’, social condition. Near the end of the 80s, the West Coast got their hands on the music and they took it to another entire level with their radical talk with NWA’s “F#$% The Police,” and Ice Cube’s “Amerikkka” and even Ice T’s “Colors,” where he starts the song out by saying “I am a nightmare walking, a psychopath talkin’!” This ushered in some scary stuff.

As rap became more a place where not only musicians talked about the situations, the audience wanted to embrace the music because the artists were talking about what they were seeing and how many of these people were living. You can certainly go outside your door and scream about poverty, bad schools, crime, and crooked police, but, again, put it on and/or in a record and you have many people hearing it and saying, “hey, that’s what I face daily!” As a result, hip hop began to be embraced by more and more people. Couple that with audiences outside of those communities that wanted to have a peak into what was happening there and you had voyeurs, on some level. Lastly, put the words on top of really nice beats and people could gain an understanding of what was going on and dance a little to it and, bam!, you got a real potent mix and formula for success.

With the music of people like Run-DMC, LL Cool J, MC Lyte, and Queen Latifa came the clever and opportunistic label heads. Many, like Russell Simmons, Andre Harrell, and later Sean “P Diddy” Combs, Master P and Suge Knight, used their own brand of entrepreneurism to take it to the masses, backed by record companies who had to embrace the music or lose out. This music led to and has led to another entire industry outside of music, in which the consumers want to be a part of everything that music people do. They want the clothes that they wear, they want to eat in the same restaurants, go to the same cities and parties, drink the same alcohol, and basically live or simulate their lifestyles. Hip hop went from music to a complete culture.  This desire from the audience to be like their music makers and cultural taste makers makes for and has made for a unique and powerful position in which these hip hop “personalities” dwell.

People like Jay-Z, Queen Latifa, Will Smith, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, and Li’l Wayne can do like Denzel Washington’s Malcolm X character did in the movie, “X,”  when he pointed in a direction and everyone went. Some of these stars have that much power and influence over their audience and companies and people who want to access that have to pay and sometimes, handsomely! On the other hand, this position is daunting and can be overwhelming, as seen in the mid 1990s when tastemakers got kids to buy certain sneakers, only to have other less fortunate or desirous kids use force to take certain coveted items. It has even caused the death of some of these youngsters. The culture has also talked about women so much that a certain disrespectful air has been created towards women that borders on and is sometimes outright mysonogistic. In addition, there has been a rise in needless and gratuitous materialism.

Hip hop has ushered in a different kind of music mogul and executive. In earlier years, you had companies like Sony, Capitol, Atlantic, and even Stax and Motown. These were usually run by laid back Black men or Jewish guys and to a lesser extent, women like Sylvia Rhone. However, hip hop has created music moguls and tastemakers that look like, act like and hang out with their artists. Russell Simmons of Def Jam, Master P of No Limit Records, Sean Puffy Combs of Bad Boy, and Damon Dash of Rock-A-Fella Records all live in the culture and not just in the recording studio and board rooms. They took their businesses which was initially music and put a stamp on the culture. These music moguls have created companies that not only sell records, music, and sometimes movies. They sell all kinds of things to make themselves into people who have “lifestyle” companies. Some of the other things that they have sold and continue to sell include clothes, cologne, credit cards, shoes, restaurants, and even their charitable organizations. And, the latest thing that has been bought by a music and hip hop guy is a sports team with Jay Z’s partnership to buy the New Jersey Nets.

This is the fourth set of lists that I have written, with jazz, funk and ballads coming in previous weeks. It doesn’t get any easier. I REALLY didn’t know that I liked music this much, but I guess I do. However, I will give it a try and instead of 10, there is THIRTY YEARS OF MUSIC, so this time, I will go ahead and try my top 15:

“Summer Time” – DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
“Hip Hop Hooray” -  Naughty By Nature
“Roll With Kid N Play” – Kid N Play
“Player’s Anthem” – Junior M.A.F.I.A feat Biggie Smalls
“The Vapors” – Biz Markie
“Overweight Lover’s In The House” – Heavy D & The Boys
“Gin & Juice” – Dr. Dre’
“I Got It Made” – Special Ed
“La Di Da Di” – Doug E Fresh
“Eric B For President” – Eric B & Rakim
“Rump Shaker” – Wrecks N Effects
“I Get Around” – Digital Underground feat. 2Pac Shakur
“Sound Of The Police” – KRS One
“Empire State of Mind” – Jay Z feat Alicia Keys
“Show Me What You Got” – Jay Z

Due to the fact that many of the members of the hip hop community have influence on our children, we HAVE to embrace them because, in spite of their bravado, they STILL need guidance. Older members of the hip hop generation like Diddy, Russell Simmons and Jay Z, who are all over forty, may not need said guidance, but rather some of the younger people in the music and culture. We need to show them some of the love for which they are, obviously, crying out. We need to give them a feel for the way that things and situations CAN be. As rap was evolving, so was the roaring 80s with all of the bragging, bling, the negative competition, and concentration on how things are, the current state of affairs. There was a time when music was more about aspiration and ambition. Just because some situation is the way it is today does not mean that an artist, a musician, a people are stuck there.

As witnessed by the many areas in which people of the hip hop culture touch, there definitely needs to be thought and action that goes into less consumerism and materialism and more activism. The bigger names and the more visible people can make many people follow them and when they are followed it should be to a place where a difference, be it a life, a neighborhood or maybe a social condition, can be made. Certainly, there can be things that are done to celebrate various levels and instances of success, but maybe a bit more muted. In other words, there should be more concentration on the possibilities, not just the glamorization. In short, hip hop should usher in an era where there is less hype and more hope!