Will Hip-Hop EVER Reach its FULL Potential? Diezel P
PDX SOCIAL — By rahmielmitchell on August 31, 2009 at 11:27 pm
FROM STORY TO GLORY
By Diezel P
Don’t let the title of this column fool you, I can’t say that I only have a positive definition for this blatant headline. Hip Hop definitely is a story OF glory, given that during its early existence and interchangeable styles through the 80’s and 90’s era, that many thought it would be just a story to tell their 
children or even grandchildren rather than the glory filled success story it is today. Now that our Big Brothers have laid the foundation for the most influential, imitated, and demanded culture on earth (Yeah, I said it “on earth!”), some may feel that our generation has tainted the inherited culture that our Microphone checkin’ ancestors worked so hard to empower and solidify its popular status.
I must admit that I am definitely one of those critics that believes over the years commercial Hip-Hop has lost it’s substance and creativity to trendy dances and repetitive concepts, but the main reason I feel Hip-Hop has been tainted is its transition from storytelling to glorifying negative aspects of their community and personal lifestyles.
Hip-Hop originated in poverty stricken and highly drug and violence infested neighborhoods, places where many of our credible artists are from today. In the beginning stages, Hip-Hop was used as a tool for artists to voice their stories of criminal activities, rough upbringings, and discrimination that flourished in their environments, in an attempt to make a change and better their communities. Somewhere down the line the ones committing the violent acts and drug distributing in their communities got a hold of the up rising music and told their own glorifying tales of illegally earning money and sexual deviance.
A combination of popular demand and media fueled controversy seemed to filter out the mainstream rotation of positive uplifting Hip-Hop, leaving us with masses containing highly influenced youth and striving artists trying to duplicate the successful careers and shallow lifestyles of some our most famous rappers. In return this causes poor morality and sense of priority amongst the lower and middle class people.
I encourage the already powerful, successful, and respected artists who own the monopoly over hip hop to stop glorifying the flaws of your personality, history, and community. We as up and coming artists need to absorb your story by learning about your achievements, mistakes, and path taken towards success to motivate and better our chances as artists and people in the urban community.
In the real world crime never pays in the end, which is acknowledged and demonstrated by these ex-cons’ and criminals’ jump from life of crime to legit music careers. To all my striving artists trying to make it big, I suggest you quit the mockery of the mainstream media lifestyles, for these millionaires did not become successful by sitting in jail cells, selling drugs, killing each other or committing adultery. They became successful by hard work ethic and the relentlessness to showcase their creativity and talent to the world. It 
is shown by many in the underground scene that these same talents can be used to uplift and unite our urban culture, but we will never see the full potential of Hip Hop if we continue to enable the commercial mainstream to feed us their perverted and water down version of Hip Hop! Let’s support the return of telling stories of our experiences to teach the ones who lend us their ears, for the youth, community, and world is depending on it!
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7 Comments
I appreciate your differentiation between legit work ethic and the life of crime so many rappers glorify in their music. K’naan said that at the age of 7 he understood hip hop “as the new poor people’s weapon,” and that’s exactly what it is, for better or worse. That’s why I’m thankful that this column exists, to combat the forces (both from within the culture and without) that threaten the potency of the message. Keep writing, Diezel; we’re listening.
Thank you chris! I knew if anybody would appreciate such a column, it would be you! And thank you to everyone who is visiting this great new site and reading all the columns, I hope to do my part to uplift the community and bring the true purpose of hip hop back through my writings, so I highly appreciate you reading them!
Word! But what do we do now? The only hope is in the underground scene where most cats are keeping it real– where they’re doing Hip-Hop for Hip-Hop; not for some end result they think it might bring them. But can the underground scene actually get popular without selling out? Probably not. I’m thinking that as this point– with the standards and quality of taste of the general public being at an all-time low– the most we can hope for is to just salvage the name of Hip-Hop by clarifying what it is, and what it isn’t. So that people know that that fluffy, refined sugar they see and hear on the mainstream is not Hip-Hop. So they know what Hip-Hop is, and so the name can regain its respect. Other than that, real Hip-Hop was never designed for universal taste, and it shouldn’t be refined to meet universal taste.
Hey, before I respond I want to thank you for the comment KM! I believe Hip Hop is a universal tool, I am working with teens both from the suburbs and from the lower income communities, who both use hip hop to positively express themselves through hip hop. I think that hip hop needs to get aggressive and start taking over the scene and radio station…. The urban culture is lacking education and want to find the shortest path to success. Let’s be real, the music being produced out of the commercial scene is geared towards the rich community, they pay money and find the glorification of urban violence and poverty entertaining because they don’t live amongst it, while the urban community falls victim to it’s influence. Hip Hop can be Universal, it has progressed so much since its beginning, I think Hip Hop is the most popular culture in the world, I’ve seen kids in Uganda who don’t have an item to their name, rehearsing Nelly songs. We need to figure out how to relate and entertain the world without belittling ourselves!
Hey Diezel, thanks for writing back! You make some interesting points. In regards to Hip-Hop appealing to universal taste– I guess that’s one of those things that will forever be disputed. Personally, I don’t believe that the raw, original style of hip-hop is made to appeal to everyone. I don’t mean that it’s not appealing to people all over the world– bc it is; but I mean that it’s style is not meant to appeal to all groups of ppl and all kinds of mentalities… real talk– I doubt that the typical suburban kid (regardless of color) whose parents are established professionals, who goes to a prep school or even your typical, decent high school is gonna be attracted to Mob Deep/Public Enemy/Talib Kweli/Das Efx, just to name a few, at first hearing it. The issues, the attitude, the message, the tone and sound of their work has nothing to do w/ some ppl’s perception of reality. So why would it appeal to them? (in most cases, there will be always be exceptions) And these kids’ parents probably won’t get it, either. Maybe I’m wrong. That’s just my impression.
But then the record labels take that style, message and attitude, strip the substance away to avoid anything controversial in the music, water it down, and refine it like sugar to make it catchy at first sound. Kids and adults from all walks of life will want to drink party and grind to Lil’ Wayne or Souljaboy, but the substance of the original product has been sacrificed. So I’m just saying that maybe the real Hip-Hop wouldn’t appeal to some of these groups in its raw form, and that it’s ok. But it definitely can, has and will continue to appeal to many groups all over the world, even in it’s raw form.
So let the Hip-Hop Heads come together to do Hip-Hop, and let the commercial rap do it’s thing, and let everyone understand the difference. But will real Hip-Hop get on the mainstream and override commercial rap? I doubt it. I’m not sure I want it to. I mean… by it’s very nature, I don’t see how Hip-Hop could be Hip-Hop if it were to exist within the conditions of the mainstream. I’m reading what’s probably one of the most thorough records of Hip-Hop, “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation,” by Jeff Chang. Have you heard of it? This book is no joke man! It’s a good 2 inches thick! So in it Chang interviews Grandmaster Flash and Bambaataa and they say how Hip-Hop, before Sugarhill Gang came out, wasn’t something that could be put on a record. It was an experience created by the DJ, the MC, the dancers, and just the crowd. The music was on-going for hours, all the elements worked together… when record lables approached these guys, they jsut laughed and didn’t want anything to do w/ it. They didn’t believe that Hip-Hop could be put on a record. And being what it was– an experience created by all these elements building off each other– it couldn’t be put on a record. But then they changed what it was and made Rapper’s Delight. And that was 15 min long and the longest track on the radio. The general public thought it was hella long and all of S. Bronx it was crazy short. Now songs are about 1:50-3min long and usually just one or 2 artists, whereas it used to be groups of 7 or so. Yeah like any culture or part of life, Hip-Hop should grow, change, evolve. THat’s fine, as long as it’s evolving; not “devolving” (is that a word? lol). As long as the actual essence remains intact so that it’s still Hip-Hop.
Wow, once I get started, I just keep going… hopefully you are able to follow all that and will find a point in it!
As for Hip-Hop targeting the wealthy and the urban community falling “victim to its influences,” that sounds like a cop-out, to be honest. It sounds like you’re framing the urban community as incapable of realizing what they’re hearing and making a valid decision about it.
I don’t see how one community is victim to this anymore than any other community that sees and hears the very same music on their TVs and radios. And now everybody glorifies being a gangster cuz of the image. Who doesn’t want to be badass and feel like they’re the shit? But with that image comes a certain mentality– they hear rappers degrading women in their lyrics, they start talking and thinking like that, too. On a side note, where are all the female emcees at??? Bahamadia– where u been??
Interesting stuff my dude. Interesting stuff. Don’t know what’s gonna happen.
Sorry for the delayed response on this column. I haven’t read the book but I’ve watched video on early hip-hop and heard all you spoke about with the lengthy hip-hop songs and interviews, and would love to check that book out. I agree that every community falls victim to the negative influence of hip-hop, but rich communities have more outlets to escape the reality of it all, while the urban community live amongst it and see it everyday, while also hearing it being glorified. Of course everyone wants to be a “Bad Ass”, but that is defined differently depending on where you live. In the suburbs, based on my experiences, the bad ass is a lot more mild than a bad ass in a violent, poverty stricken community. I believe that the urban community is capable of achieving anything they want to, if given the proper resources, unfortunately they usually aren’t which leaves them less educated, poverty stricken, and angered in most cases, resulting in higher vulnerablity to negative influences, thats all I’m saying.
Now there are a lot of underground hip hop artists who could continue to remain the community activists and outspoken positive and creative artists they are, even in the lime light of the commercial scene. I think that we could change the world for the better if we took the place of the commercial scene. I’m not telling hip hop to change its ways to get there, I want those same artists who love music, up lift and give back to their communities to reach the same success as the shallow and self-centered rappers of today, and use their financial stability and fame to progress even further with their artistry. I can confidently say that, if I were to gain the success of a Lil Wayne or Jay-Z, that I would change for the better. I’m not nieve to the hectic lifestyles they live, but I am completely certain of what my mission is as an artist/activist/columnist/person in my community, and many other talented underground artist are too!