KRS-ONE

Remember when rappers could be seen as reporters?

It hit me while watching the Vh1 documentary "Planet Rock" the other day.
There's so many things occurring in the world at this moment from the
Occupy movement to the rough economy to the Arab Spring. In the film,
MC's and producers and other figures speak about how hip hop informed
them of what was really going on in the streets during the era of crack
cocaine's dominance in the United States. Hip hop has always been a craft
of storytelling and in a lot of ways, it was a newspaper detailing what really
went on. If you grew up like I did with a mother who worried every time you
left the house, then you viewed hip hop music as a way to understand some
of what went down on the blocks closest to you and those far away. I cut my
teeth on Public Enemy and KRS-ONE among others like everyone else. But I
find myself asking the above question more and more often these days.

Immortal Technique.

I understand that hip hop is as varied as its listeners and rightly so. But I'm not going
to sit there and just accept what others seem to. Which is, the messengers of hip hop,
the truth-tellers are few and far between. Remember 'Self-Destruction' and 'We're All
in The Same Gang?' You may never hear full-blown records like that again promoted
by a label like those were. Not only are the times different, but the circumstances are
also different. For one, the labels are in essence an arm of a huge corporate conglomerate
and profit is the aim when it comes to hip hop artists with a few exceptions. To them,
messages don't make money. At least in the hip hop of today they supposedly don't.
You turn on the radio and you get a lot of rap that is formulaic. I remember being in a
store in the Financial District one day and they had on Z100, a pop music station that I
always figured wasn't a realm hip hop would even crack. They played two songs by Drake
and Lil Wayne that sounded so similar that I didn't even notice until a Rihanna song played
afterwards. It wasn't like that five years ago. And even before that.

dead prez.

Look, I'm not here to throw stones at some of these contemporary rappers. Well, maybe a
couple but that's not what this is about. I know I'm not the only one who notices that there's
a distinct schism being placed in between certain MC's whose subject matter makes them akin
to the journalists of our corners. I know I'm not the only one who sees that certain labels that
are put on artists are more harmful than good. Like 'backpacker' or 'conscious'. And the problem
is, some of us are helping those labels stick in a way that makes others not want to pay them
any mind. In some cases, admitting you listen to certain hip hop artists whose music is laden
with messages these days gets a response laden with crickets and silence. It never used to be
that way. I remember when EVERYONE was bumping Dead Prez's 'Let's Get Free' when it dropped.
When I saw M-1 at a show with Ghostface and Slick Rick five years after that album, the crowd
barely gave him props. I still remember seething with irritation when Jeru The Damaja got BOOED
on his birthday as he performed at a Wu-Tang Clan show. My point here is, while hip hop is a viable
art which allows for many forms of expression, it is no longer art when it all becomes the same.
And we've got to appreciate that hip hop is one of the few sources of info out there we can rely on
and celebrate the artists who keep speaking the truth to things as much as we celebrate the ones
who pop bottles and toss dollars constantly. Artist like The Coup, Mystic, Immortal Technique,
Talib Kweli and many others need that from us now because they're the lyrical journalists in a war
being waged. What war? Pick one. They're the balancing piece the music's been missing for a minute.

Like the song says, 'It's bigger than hip hop.' We can't make hip hop - and our minds - smaller than the times.