Rap is a Gimmick, Hip-Hop is a Culture

When hip-hop began in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it was music for the black community, by the black community. The Sugarhill Gang’s lyrically complex “Rapper’s Delight” ushered in a musical genre that could convey much more in a single bar than any essay could. Hip-hop spoke to the communities in which it began, such as Harlem, Philadelphia, and the Bronx, touching on topics such as black empowerment, the drug epidemic, poverty, and the ways in which to use culture as an escape from these everyday problems. Kids crammed by the hundreds into small basements to hear the latest mixes from the neighbourhood MC’s. But hip-hop, like any genre, has undergone rapid evolutions throughout its relatively short existence. What started as a political tool for communities of colour quickly devolved into a vehicle for misogyny and the promotion of a disconnected lifestyle with the braggadocios rap of the 90’s and 2000’s. However, within the last few years, hip-hop experienced a reawakening and once again cemented itself as the premier music for social consciousness.

As the Black Power movement began to take hold in America in the 1960’s, music began to take a frontal role in delivering messages to a wider audience. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message,” released in 1982, was the first commercially successful song to cement rap as the music of the black community. The song’s lyrics describe the struggles of inner-city poverty culminating with the hook “It’s like a jungle sometimes / It makes me wonder how I keep from going under.” The floodgates opened for artists like Public Enemy, NWA, and Boogie Down Productions to write lyrics with real meaning about police violence, racial injustice, and black nationalism. Artists like 2Pac, Biggie, and Nas followed in the 90’s by blending this lyrical content with their personal experiences of a violent past, putting up huge sales due to strong production and marketing the extravagant rapper lifestyle.

In the early 2000’s, however, music with a message became lost on rap. Artists such as 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, Ludacris, and Nelly became largely successful, selling themselves solely on lyrical themes including misogyny, violence, and often blatant homophobia.

Groups like Three 6 Mafia became famous because of songs like “It’s Hard Out Here For a Pimp,” Eminem won his first Grammy for The Marshall Mathers LP, where he speaks of murdering his estranged wife on his track “Kim.” So where did the message go? What happened to the acidic social awareness hip-hop was known for? The answer: it simply was not commercially successful to be “woke.” Rappers like Mos Def and Talib Kweli of Blackstar found it impossible to sell while rapping about the black struggle when all the public wanted was slick beats, heavy production, and lyrics they could rap along to. In the late 2000’s, however, rap took a thematic turn and brought us to the modernday rap scene.

When Kendrick Lamar burst onto the scene with his concept album Section.80 in 2011, it had been a while since hip-hop had seen such lyrical complexity paired with such thoughtful beats. Kendrick was rap’s new superstar, and as seen to this day, clearly has the staying power of the rap superstars of the past. His rap contemporaries such as Logic, Chance, J. Cole, and Lupe Fiasco have found massive commercial success by bringing back the pairings of smooth, mellow beats with substantial lyrical content. Kendrick said it best on the “Mask Off-Remix”—“How y’all let a conscious n**** go commercial while only making conscious albums?”

But what brought about this evolution in attitudes about rap? Why is Kendrick able to sell 2 million records about love and being humble? The answer lies in current attitudes towards awareness of social issues amongst youth, arguably rap’s target demographic. We are realizing it isn’t cool to be ignorant anymore. Racism, homophobia, sexism, and violence don’t work in our communities, and the music we listen to should reflect that. Rappers realized that to get airplay, they’d have to be real. Thus, hip-hop is straying from sexism, income flaunting, and “stunting,” and is headed more towards artists speaking directly about the issues they face. When the art of the day represents the authentic feelings of the population, maybe social change can start from the bottom generation. I love rap music, and I strive to have my music represent my views. If music is important to you, reconsider how the music you make and listen to defines our culture and society, as well as your personal views.

By Reuben D'Souza