links for 2007-05-14
Mon, 14 May 2007.
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When most people tell me they like hip hop, I know what they really mean is they like the popular manufactured shit that makes them feel like a thug in their car and makes the girls shake their tits on the dancefloor. Surely hip hop means more than that.
There’s hip hop and then there’s hip hop. The stuff you hear on the radio most of the time is as you describe above, but it’s a broader genre than that by far. Have a listen to the Hilltop Hoods, for example - it’s about the rhyme and quick wordplay, as well as the mix of beats. Most hip hop outside America tends to focus on this aspect over the thug culture. Early hiphop/rap focused on that kind of stuff more, as well.
(this is not to say I don’t listen/like the pop-hop stuff, too, but it’s got its place.)
Yeah, I have some idea of what hip hop sounds like. Like it says in the article, hip hop with artistic merit still exists today but it exists despite the current pop environment, not because of it.
My gripe is that a lot of the people that say they like hip hop only like it for the stereotypical, one-dimensional images that it has come to represent rather than a musical genre with its own rich history and expression. It’s like saying you’re the world’s biggest cheese lover because you love how it comes in a convenient spray can.
I think Jack’s got a point here. The fact that good hip hop exists in basically direct conflict with the popular hip hop out there says to me the genre as a whole is not healthy. I feel you get the most quality musical output when the underground and the popular branches of the genre are functioning together, the underground creating a community and a scene and the popular bringing that scene to national attention. When the two are working at cross purposes you have a big disconnect like you see right now.
(and thanks for the link!)
I struggle to name another pop genre that does this successfully, though. “Emo” is probably the only one that has any measure of conversion from underground to mainstream, and that’s been helped along somewhat, especially by a show like The OC. Pure pop has no “underground” - it’d be an oxymoron, surely :D - and rock is just faded in general (but then I don’t listen to rock, so I’m no expert.)
Maybe I just don’t know it, but I think this is more widespread across genres, and not hip hop specifically.