Conservatives vs Rap, maybe - 9.7.2007.1

I recently read a post by Min. Paul Scott that deals with the conservative right and their reaction to hip-hop culture. There are parts of this post that I agree with, but there is far more that I disagree with. I agree that overall, there is a feeling in the conservative right that hip-hop is equivalent to gangsta rap. Such equivalence is unfair to some degree, as everything that is considered hip hop is not in fact gangsta rap, though everything that is gangsta rap is hip-hop. The difference is subtle, especially when considering the nature of mainstream rap today is so prevalent and so violent.

While I agree that at its best rap has had the potential to give a voice from the Black community to the world. Perhaps one of the best examples of that voice would be Chuck D. and Public Enemy. Political rap was a powerful genre of rap music that came onto the scene at the end of the 1980s and was quickly extinguished by 1992 with the birth of gangsta rap. The loss of such a powerful medium has never truly been addressed by the mainstream, and I believe not fully understood by most of the Black community.

Something that is to be understood is what happened from approximately 1992 forward as opposed to what happened prior. Prior to the birth of gangsta rap, the entire rap industry was considered to be a fad, though it had existed at that point for roughly 10 years. The influence, diversity, and attention being given to rap and its subgenres had been growing continuously, which bewildered many while it was described consistently as being a false form of music. This denial of what is now considered a valid music format, ended very shortly after the appearance of NWA and other similar groups. At the same time, corporations invested heavily in marketing, music videos and distribution for this new music format. As gangsta rap grew, all other forms of rap were minimized. Few groups of any other style were signed by the music corporations and existing artists were weeded out. With the recognition of gangsta rap as a form of music enormous amounts of money were made from the commercialization of this genre.

[It is my long-held and absolute belief that for all the comments people may make about what is selling out and "keeping it real," gangsta rap does not keep it real and is the most explicit form of selling out I have ever seen in four decades of life. Some may disagree, but that's what I feel.]

The post mentions the greatest fear of Senator Robert Wentworth being his young son getting in trouble for threatening to bust a cap in another student. I would have to believe that for every parent this would be a great fear. That is unless I missed the time when threatening to kill a person became a positive statement. That's not conservative thing, it is a human being thing. Anything that promotes such extreme violence is something that I would expect every parent would be against. I submit that only through the excellence of various corporations and their marketing programs, has such a concept become considered anything besides undesirable in any community of people.

Of course that isn't hip-hop. That's gangsta rap. But at the same time, the elements and identifiers of gangsta rap are hip-hop. The baggy clothing, baseball caps, gold chains, platinum teeth, overpriced speakers, and other forms of crunk or ghetto fabulous attire are part and parcel hip-hop and gangsta rap. It may be to the detriment of hip-hop that it is almost impossible for someone to not associate one with the other. I have yet to hear a solid explanation of where the line between one and the other exist. But given the fact that there is some fuzzy gray area dividing the two, I am not surprised that a parent seeing their child dressed in this manner and espouses such commentary would be concerned to say the least.

Continued in part 2...