What is Hip-hop?

What is hip-hop and who can claim to carry that title? Is it the simple-minded, ballerific ideologies now the norm in the sub-conscious, gangsta-influenced, cookie cutter lyrics proliferating playlists? Is it Nelly's heartfelt plea over the fate of his sister or him sliding a credit card down some video vixen's ass? Could it be 50 rapping still about selling dope to get dollars on the heels of a 9-digit deal for bottled water? You tell me.

Hip-hop has always lived along a dichotomous razor's edge. A soulful cry for a disenfranchised inner city youth with no other forum from which to speak, for certain, but driven by the necessity of its own creative circumstance, nonetheless. It became a bullhorn for the drowned out voices and stood proud as an arbiter of change and a vessel for dynamic aspirations. An exploration of possibility.

Now what? Has it evolved to become, not a mirror or sounding board, but a crunk-fest? It couldn't possibly be a clean reflection, otherwise all the inner-city would be drug-addled, dope-pushers in $100,000 rides sittin on 22's. So where is my ride? I don't have a dope connect, so I can't cash a hip-hop check? That's bullshit to me, especially when I realize that this image comes at a cost and only the pain and the destruction are free. And that's the way it has to be, because hip-hop is too young to live with much regret.

It is the bastard child of the ideals passed down by a preceding generation imitating the cool. Back when the fly guys harmonized and macked the ladies against the backdrop of a Motown soundtrack or the slick jams dropped by jazz giants. They would dance to the rhythms of life that stood apart from the American apartheid that left deep and permanent fissures in our hearts. And as an escape, they could flip a 45” and forget for the moment, live a fantasy based on a make-believe, but well-conceived reality.

The same goes today for those millions, even billions, left out of the processes that run the world. The fantasies spun now, though, hit home in different ways. It's dropped on beats that move your feet, make you believe that a dope man's dreams supersede the concern for a crack head cousin. Disagree with the suburban, white majority, the most valued demographic driving the industry, and get labeled a hippie, a backpack rapper or a hater with no understanding.

I'm not hip-hop because I listen to r&b, rock, reggae and classical music? Prove it. Identify the sample in most hip-hop hits without a little knowledge of what's come before it. That's nonsense on a very high level, isn't it? A simple, economic based status quo that cares less for a purists' lament over the decline of organized dissent.

Hip-hop music and culture is being hijacked by a corporate elite who can bleach the soul from the most densely packed cultural communities. Take over the reigns and change the direction of an entire generation. So what is hip-hop? A Chevy ad and a shoe deal? Vitamin water, blunts and big wheels? Stripper poles and cocaine? Whatever it was, it sure isn't the same. It's not the proud, noble thing it once had been, but a mish-mash caught in the swirl of sub-genres all clamoring for the right to claim superiority.

I grew up with you. Watched you evolve from nursery rhyme raps to complicated lyrical intensity. Watched the growth of the MC and the death of non-conformity. It ain't the same when everyone is the same, and it can't be solely about the hip-hop game when every rapper seems to want to slang cocaine instead of a hot hit on the streets. So, somewhere, someone is admitting defeat. Some lyricist is changing his or her content to satisfy the need to pay rent, and its not the Puffy's or Jay-Z's demanding acquiescence from the novice. It's the record company elite who could give a damn about what hip hop means.

To a corporate concern, culture can be distilled into beautifully blended balance sheets, profits margins and investor complacency. What does this have to do with the streets that birthed this movement? Nothing. It is what it is, though, because the naming rights were sold to the highest bidder. Its definition became an external thing instead of being generated from within. Hip-hop became safe enough to sell a car, a bar of soap or a cruise, it became the soundtrack of the evening news. A rich record company exec's idea of what it should be, not what it was or could be.

Hip-hop is under attack and the last thing it needs to save it from itself is another gangster rap. With no sense of history, bitches and niggas can only serve as detriment to an art form that is now thriving on the criminal and the pornographic.

There are still enough of us with love for you to keep the history alive in the present, though. Cry foul when we hear another bullshit lyric and a factory beat. When it first touches your soul, hip-hop tends to take hold and hold you accountable for what you perceive. That's what's up with its ever evolving ability to describe me individually and still reach out and touch you and do the same for your affinities.

So here's my fantasy. Hip-hop needs a hero. A flame-throwing lyricist with no fear and deep content. A radio station DJ with the balls to recognize a hit and find no fear in playing it. A consumer who loves to hear the differences that have been missing and a producer with a heavy hand. Hip-hop needs the return of the new again. Not another "ready for the radio" jam.