Evolution of Media: Hip-Hop Narrative - Entry #2

Yesterday's class session showcased a handful of senseless arguments regarding hip-hop and the "direction" it's heading in. One girl in particular was pretty adamant that rap music was not all there was to hip-hop, and that the culture of hip-hop was far bigger than the music; big enough for the other aspects to exist on their own, and that any consideration that could be made about them could be made independently of rap music.

Her argument went something like this:

Classmate #1: "I don't like Soulja Boy, or where hip-hop is going for that matter."

Soapbox Girl: "Why can't we talk about hip-hop without having to refer to the music? Soulja Boy isn't hip-hop, and I don't think we have to talk about rap in order to discuss what hip-hop culture really is."

I was pretty worn out after she repeated her circular arguments, so I didn't bother commenting by the end of her soapbox, but I respectfully and completely disagree with her sentiments. There may be components of hip-hop that comprise the culture as a whole, rap music is precisely what gave birth to the entire movement. Things that hip-hop has come to affect and shape over the years - fashion, vernacular and colloquialisms, mainstream music trends, drugs, media, etc. - are areas that have been directly influenced by rap music, and are able to exist peripherally because of rap music's extensive reach.

Rap might not be all there is to hip-hop culture on the cusp of 2011, but it is arguably the biggest component of hip-hop culture, by far. To consciously omit rap from any consideration of what hip-hop is or the direction it is going in is outrageous, and willfully ignores the primary force that has driven hip-hop culture and its deep mainstream penetration since its inception. If one is attempting to divorce his- or herself from the projected shortcomings that tend to dominate present day rap dialogue (material fixation, misogyny, homophobia, etc.) because that person believes that the heart and soul and hip-hop as it "used to be known as" has fallen by the wayside, that person is just being idealistic. That is one person's concept of what hip-hop culture ought to be, and not how it exists today.

Alternatively, the subject matter that preoccupies much of the rap conversation in the mainstream did not just come out of nowhere, either. These topics have been floating around since rap even started; they have just been pushed to the forefront now due to significant changes in the market landscape of music caused by hip-hop itself. Sex, drugs, violence, and controversy of all breeds have always been prevalent in all genres of popular music, and hip-hop is simply the latest trend to capitalize on the market. Then one also has to consider how the basic "struggle" for up-and-coming hip-hop artists has shifted considerably; the absence of a compelling origin tends to make newer aspiring talent more faceless and appear less original than their predecessors.

Nas famously proclaimed that hip-hop was dead at the tail-end of 2008. Whose hip-hop? There definitely seems to be a stark disagreement about what hip-hop is to begin with, so it is even feasible to have this argument without any sort of consensus?