Sadly but luckily, my first awareness of black people and their culture came from hip-hop. Due to the persistent segregation of Southern neighborhoods and self-segregation in spite of forcible integration at southern schools, opportunities for meaningful relationships between white and black children remain low in Nashville, Tenn. Luckily, through hip-hop I had come to realize the depth, intelligence and pure artistic beauty of African-American self-expression.
"Are you insane? You think hip-hop is deep, intelligent and artistically beautiful?" Likely questions, given the filth passing for hip-hop that pervades America's radios, TVs and record stores. Yet, beneath its popular surface which is polluted with a rancid layer of drug and violence glorification, female objectification and bling, lies a cultural ocean brimming with inspiration and creativity. An assortment of artists producing an innumerable quantity of albums and songs comprise the collective of underground hip-hop. I plunged head-first into its depths from the diving board of legends like Das EFX, Wu Tang, Nas (before he sold out) and others, and have been swimming through the current of underground hip-hop since. Through the songs of the artists at Rawkus Records, groups like Gangg Star, Jedi Mind Tricks and People Under the Stairs, and individual musicians like Masta Ace, Black Rob, Prince Paul and Mos Def, hip-hop became my favorite music genre.
Don't get me wrong, the old school legends and their underground heirs rap their full share of sex, drugs and guns. That is obvious, since the main inspirations for an artist is his or her environment and the experiences he or she goes through. Since hip-hop originated in the inner city, its natural subject matter is the reality therein. Yet the underground artists neither glorify the evil surrounding them nor do they don't brag about being a part of it like the commercial artists do. They describe, they judge and they confess; yet they don't worship the crime and depravity.
And then there is the beauty. The beats and the lyrics delight ears, inspire minds and touch souls. Both musically and poetically, underground hip-hop is the most amazing modern incarnation of human artistic creativity. For example, consider this fragment of Mos Def and Talib Kweli's song, "Respiration."
"So much on my mind that I can't recline; blasting holes in the night till she bled sunshine. Breathe in, inhale vapors from bright stars that shine; breathe out, weed smoke retrace the skyline. Heard the bass ride out like an ancient mating call, I can't take it yall, I can feel the city breathing, chest heaving against the flesh of the evening. Sigh before we die like the last train leaving..."
I want to compare these lyrics with a jewel by the famous Lil' John that made him rich a year ago:
"Three, six, nine, damn she fine. Hopin' she can sock it to me one mo time. Get low, get low, get low, get low. To the window, to the wall, to the sweat drop down my balls, to all these b***hes crawl."
This type of filth has been plaguing hip-hop practically since its birth. Almost ten years ago, DJ Shadow wrote a song called "What's Wrong with Hip Hop in '96," in which just one line loops over the beat: "It's the money, money." Lil' John's song sold, Mos Def's did not. Popular music has rarely been deep or intelligent; its major attributes are being vacuously catchy or shocking. And while Lil' John's "Get Low" is both, Mos Def's "Respiration" is neither.
All music genres usually divide into the commercial and the underground, into the superficial and the sublime. Yet there is a unique danger in the shock value off of which popular hip-hop artists are trying to profit. The rather intellectual -- despite his popularity -- Kanye West ranted at a Hurricane Katrina fundraiser, "I hate the way they portray us in the media...George Bush doesn't care about black people."
I agree with him, but I feel that West needs to give some serious thought to how his colleagues portray black people in the media by perpetuating the racist stereotype of the misogynist, gun-packing, crack-smoking, gaudy jewel blinging black man. Their debasement of the black person negates all efforts to convince prejudiced people like Bush that their indifference to black poverty and suffering in America must end. Such behavior is a libel upon all African-Americans because many white kids like me become aware of black culture only through hip-hop. Yet unlike me, most of them are never exposed to anything beyond the usual commercial filth.
West's new album includes the song: "Crack Music," in which he raps: "That's that crack music [...] that real black music, This dark diction has become America's addiction, those who ain't even black use it."
Yes, hip-hop has entrenched itself in the mainstream of American culture and reaches everyone, even those that aren't black. Yet Kanye is otherwise wrong. "That crack music," the manufactured, cooked down grime that is peddled to make millions is by no means real black music. It is only crack music, for just like the crack scourge of the black inner cities, it has made those few who deal in it filthy rich off the collective suffering and denigration of their black brethren.
