Pinnacle Music

I was browsing the blogs the other day, I was taking note of the extreme hybridization and genre bending that goes on in music today.  That got me to admiring how far hip hop has come. Clearly much of the music that has been popular over the last two decades owes its success to hip hip, its derivatives (children), and the exploitation of hip hop. As I watched the current ambassadors of hip hop, in their tailor made, custom fitted suits, their inexplcable all season scarves, turtlenecks and vain janglings; I noticed the subtle sympathetic labor pains of a concerned papa.

Indeed, I realize that what I feel about my baby was not pride, but actual disappointment.
To me, hip hop's legacy has been stolen. Coopted by corporatization, excess, and wayward stans who like get high to hard beats and rolling bass-lines. Despite my core essence being antithetical to the aforementioned, I'm not as disheartened by the fact that hip hop is not so much dead as it is meaningless.



Somewhere along the way, the subversion of Hip hop took place and it is no longer the voice of the disenfranchised, its no longer the platform of the have nots, it no longer highlights the stark contrast between the idealized view of america and the radicalized reality based perspective the of hopeless. The game has been inverted; and now hip hop is associated with success and mainstream and all that is popular and teh ghey. And therefore, who cares; really.

I am disenfranchised with Hip Hop in its current revision. Have been for several years now. But I havent turned my back on her. She's left me for some bullshit that I dont understand. She dont care about the history and laughs at thought of the noble struggle that fueled the game via classics like The Message, et al. Today, Hip Hop has Weezy leaving George for Peter Bentley and then taking George's apartment via Emminent Domain; laughing all the way.

George now lives downstairs in the basement.

What could be a reasonable compromise is sheer balance in the consumer marketplaces. In the past, diverse and divergent acts could co-exist and were embraceable by all. For example, I could tolerate - enjoy even - the Fat Boys because Rakim was around. I could deal with PM Dawn so long as BDP was around. Mc Hammer: Wu tang. And radio understood this and played it all. Not so much today.

Truthfully, the balance doesnt exist today. And the youth dem dont know or realize how this trucks the game up. They dont understand how the balance allows for a traceable critical path from where we stand now back to the roots; the so called "essence". The 80 blocks from Tiffany's shit is what I mean. Balance allows us to retain our knowledge of our cultural self.. Our art today is not official. Its artificial.

I've never been one whose attempted to own the definition of hip hop. I generally say that I know it when I hear it. Indeed, when I search for it, I usually can find it. There is plenty of space in the broadly defined world of Hip Hop where Jay Z and Jay Electronica and Kid Cudi and Theopolius London and Black Milk and Mos Def and MF Doom and Asher Roth can coexist.  But the balance has to be struck and that only happens when we take accountability to and for the game we created. Until this happens, no one will give a damn.

Parting point to ponder.
Based on what we see in rap music today, which acts would be considered (in terms of popularity, style and relevance) the Young MC's of today? The Hammer? Who would be considered the SNAP! of today? Now who would be considered today's Wutang? Today's Busta Rhymes? Today's Tupac?

-MM