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It’s been a while, but it’s still the 50th year of Hip Hop and while the Hip Hop generation continues to celebrate on a high note. Hip hop also known as rap is the genre of popular music that emerged in the early 1970s by Blacks several years prior to mainstream discovery.
It's interesting how the very idea of 50 years of Hip Hop has flown past some, but here it is. So, what is it all about? Beyonce, Taylor Swift, and Drake have had record-breaking tours in 2023. Truth . . . I love some Hip Hop artists and some I don’t; but give me Lauryn Hill, Nas, Tupac, Jay-Z, Kendrick Lamar, Public Enemy, Mos Def, RUN DMC, Will Smith, LL Cool J, Missy Elliott, Ice Cube, Kanye, Queen Latifah, Common, Erykah Badu, Busta Rhymes, A Tribe Called Quest, OutKast, Arrested Development, and the Fugees to name a few. However, with that said, my point is that we are definitely on different vibrations when it comes to most things from, music to politics. But one thing I know to be true is that they know what I know and that is that Hip Hop emerged from the Black experience and like its predecessors—Jazz and Soul, America has never been the same. Both have an indisputable impact on the world, especially Hip Hop.
Sure, Jazz hit the world too, but there was no internet or, social media platforms and all that came with it during its prime. It was shared with the world the old-fashioned way. And folks around the world were fascinated. Jazz influences dress, language, music, and all art forms.
However, the art form that was initially rejected and not readily embraced by the music industry did not detour the creators. They kept it moving. The birth of Hip Hop on August 11, 1973, is noted as the date when some teenagers threw a backroom party in the Bronx, where 18- year old Jamaican born, Olive Campbell AKA DJ Kool was inspired to extend an instrumental beat, breaking and or scratching to let people dance longer to the song. He began rapping or what is known as MC’ing during the extended plays. Additionally, he played the same album on two different turn tables and extended the drum section (which became known as the breakbeat).
Others included in the birth of Hip Hop are Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. These three men are often referred to as the ‘holy trinity of early hip hop. The music world was flowing and so much was in transition. The youth were birthing to life their experience of the world bringing it into the fold. It was definitely ‘a thing’ that took on a life of its own. Before we knew it
Hip Hop was the 'thang.' And a whole new genre of music changed the world.
LANGUAGE ALERT!
The one thing I noticed about Hip Hop was the language and the themes that were so opposite to the music of my youth. While we celebrated life, love, our personal power, freedom, Black power, and success. . . “We’re Young Gifted & Black,” “Say it Loud, I’m Black & I’m Proud,” “Ain't No Stoppin' Us Now,” “What’s Going On,” “Save the Children,” “What’s Happening Brother?,” “God is Love,” “Move On Up,” “Power to the People,” “The Makings of You,” “The Needle’s Eye, “When You Are Who You Are”, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” And the list goes on . . . these songs were mantras that we sang and repeated the words as chants that impressed upon our hearts and minds the meanings of the words and the integrity that they spoke of, we embraced them as chants instructing our actions and we stayed the course, staying focus with our game face-on. We went forward into the world and leaned in deeply forward and onward we rocked steady and held our stance. Black Power was the secret sauce and we stopped waiting for them to “Open Up the Door . . . and I’ll get it my Self . . . like James Brown said. All these themes were self-advancing and real “WOKE,” music by my definition. The overview of the Baby Boomer sound was love, family, and protest. Hip Hop themes have contrasted drastically including violence, rivalry, and sex. We also celebrated our relationships with endearments and less sexual innuendos . . . just a few distinctions.
And more to the point, Dr. Frances Cress Welsing noted that American Blacks were the only group of people that took the derogatory terms given to describe us by our oppressor like ‘dog, bitch, gangster, ho’ and nigger’ and embrace them with endearment. This acceptance is a subconscious action that impresses upon pour psyche the negative connotation.
Then there’s the culture and its behaviors . . . rappers killin’ rappers. What? Can you imagine the Temptations killing Marvin Gaye or the Impressions? And the promotion of promiscuity, the introduction of twerking as a norm and the featuring of the ‘ho’ persona. It takes Tupac to address this one . . .
“You know what makes me unhappy? (What's that?)
When brothers make babies
And leave a young mother to be a pappy (Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah)
And since we all came from a woman
Got our name from a woman and our game from a woman (Yeah, yeah)
I wonder why we take from our women
Why we rape our women, do we hate our women?
(Why? Why? Why? Why? Why? Why?)
I think it's time to kill for our women
Time to heal our women, be real to our women
And if we don't, we'll have a race of babies
That will hate the ladies that make the babies (Oh, yeah-yeah)
And since a man can't make one
He has no right to tell a woman when and where to create one
So will the real men get up?
I know you're fed up, ladies, but keep ya head up.”
CONCLUSION
Many have become millionaires even billionaires and have influenced the world . . . everybody wants to have the Hip Hoppers, style, fame, and money. The sad note is that they have become wealthy on the strength of the derogatory. So now that many have grown up and are now parents. It will be interesting to see how the children of the Hip Hop generation will see their parents’ generation and move forward in the world. What’s next?