I don't really listen to hip-hop music, but I listen to enough to notice a single beautiful and universal truth about hip-hop that separates it from any and every other musical genre in existence: hip-hop artists are allowed to break more "rules" of music than anyone else. Hip-hop has been called many negative things. It has been called offensive, degrading, and immature. It has been said to promote violence, discrimination, and sexism, and more than one person has suggested banning it. It is probably the most attacked type of artistic expression currently available in the mass market, but you can't deny hip-hop's originality, and the more I listen to it, the more I recognize it as a unique and unlikely phenomenon which (pardon the cliche) follows its own rules. The following are my list of the top 5 elements that hip-hop manages to embrace while going against all other unspoken rules of music:
1)
Sampling: I am well aware that the focus of a great deal of Hip-Hop is the lyrics, and to a lesser degree, the beats, but maybe the most prominent element in hip-hop absent from other genres is that of sampling. Hip-hop will sample everything. In my limited collection of hip-hop, I have songs that sample rock, soul, R&B, funk, and classical music, movie and television sound clips and themes, even Broadway musicals. Sampling is perfect for someone like me who doesn't listen to hip-hop very often and who subsequently knows very little about it. Much of the time I could ignore most hip-hop, but if I hear N-Trance adding a beat and rhymes on top of the BeeGee's "Staying Alive," then that is a jam I can get behind. The formula is relatively simple: find a song or a sound clip you like, loop it, boost or add a bass line and a heavy beat, and rap on top of it. Again, it is a pretty basic formula, but the key to something sounding like
The Average Homeboy or NWA is all in the execution and the attitude. Anyone who has ever listened to The Sex Pistols could tell you that. There are just a few things that I am confused about in terms of sampling:
Jay-Z is one of the most respected hip-hop artists/producers in the world who no one could possible talk bad about. He is unquestionably one of the most prominent examples of the
Horatio Alger's vision of the American dream. but he sampled a song from the musical "
Annie," so how cool could he be?
Why don't more people know about Jedi Mind Tricks? Is it the name that turns people off? Cause I think there stuff is outstanding, but then again, what do I know? I just hear
Yo-yo Ma with a beat.
2) Self-inflation: I would say that in a good 30% of the hip-hop songs I have on my computer, the artist mentions his own name or his group in the first 10-15 seconds of the song. This happens in all of my other music approximately 0% of the time. I used to love it when an artist mentions his own name. My former roommate and dear friend was a big fan of hip-hop when I was still listening to Hanson. Clearly, his goal in life, aside from trying to beat level 3 of Garma's Fate, was to get me to listen to more hip-hop, so he let me copy a bunch of his CD mixes. The greatest thing about it was I never had to look up who was singing because the artists always managed to mention their own names in the songs. For a musical genius such as myself, it is difficult for me to admit something as basic as a song's performer, but hip-hop managed to do the work for me so I could go back to waxing philosophical about songs potentially about transvestites (Lola, Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da, etc).
Hip-hop is an intensely personal art form. Personal in the respect that hip-hop has a tendency to be a statement that says "this is what I, the artist, am all about." Often times the songs are or pose to be a story of one's own life, so adding one's own name acts as a reinforcement that he or she is refering to him or her self. In a large percentage of songs, the subject matter is considered controversial at best, and by attaching one's name to the controversial subject, the artist is openly telling the audience that he/or she stands by everything they say. They make no apologies and they don't sugar-coat it for anyone. It says "think what you want, but this is what I say, and don't you forget it or who is saying it." It is like the political ads you see during election seasons ending with "I'm (fill in politician of choice) and I approve this message." Hip-hop does the same thing...Usually with a lot more profanity.
3) Criticism of peers: There are entire hip-hop songs dedicated to smack talking of one or more specific people. The extent of the East coast/West coast rivalry of the mid 1990's between Death Row Records and Bad Boy Records can be heard overtly in a number of songs by a number of artists. Or look at Eminem's career. He has managed to make a lucrative living out of either insulting other people or talking about how everyone hates yet needs him. Tupac versus Biggie, Kanye West versus 50 Cent, Canibus versus LL Cool J, Nas versus Jay-Z, and the list goes on. It is absolutely fascinating to see how hip-hop artists can literally hate each other and devote entire songs to that bitter hatred for seemingly no reason.
The hip-hop rivalries, when they don't result in violence, are fantastic, they are like Shakespearean battles with two great men filled with hubris squaring off for a fight to the death. They are Brutus and Mark Antony who's battle of words is about not only what you say, but about how you say it. It is about what rhymes you put together, what beat is behind your song, what your hook sounds like, and who you get to back you, and whoever puts together the better song or album gets the support of more people on the battlefront. Again, as long as it remains non-violent, hip-hop rivalries are the closest thing to William Shakespeare acting out the first amendment at the turn of the 21st century like a high school history class acid trip. And who wouldn't support that?
4)
Names: Jay-z, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Biggie Smalls, Busta Rhymes, Romeo, Bow Wow, Ice Cube, Ice T, Vanilla Ice, and the list goes on and on and
ON. In the world of Hip-Hop, everyone has a name, and nearly all of those names are something other than birth names, but they are the names that become the names of the artists. They are more than stage names or alter-egos as in David Bowie's
Ziggy Stardust days. They become the artists actual names and personas. To be fair, this does occur in other genres from time to time (Bono, The Edge, Bo Diddley, Gene Simmons, Kenny G, Bob Dylan, etc.), but not nearly to the extent that it happens in hip-hop. The phenomenon is so prominent that it is difficult to assert oneself as a serious hip-hop artist without an overtly false name. In most musical genres, songs are made by bands, bands that are made up of people. The Who is a made up name given to a band, but that band is made up of guys who's actual names are Pete Townsend and Roger Daltry, and we all know them as such. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh have given themselves the collective name The Grateful Dead, but when the members are solo, they are Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Phil Lesh. For those fortunate enough to find success as a solo artist, they are, for the most part known by their actual birth name; Billy Joel, Kenny Chesney, or Neil Young, but in hip-hop, all the rules are broken. In a group scenerio, there is a group of artists known collectively as
The Boot Camp Clik, but individually they are Buckshot, Smif-n-Wessun, Heltah Skeltah, and OGC, and chances are, unless you are pretty well dialed in or you have the time and interest to log onto
wikipedia, you have no idea what their birth names are.
In the late 20th and early 21st century, hip-hop was pretty well established as the music of the streets. It represented the struggles and successes of impoverished people in this country. I recently watched the first episode of "
From G's to Gents," and the first thing I noticed about it was that all of the "G's" are apparently from lower income households, have made their own living doing whatever they had to do to get by be it legal or otherwise, and they all go by names other than their birth names. I would wager that one of the prominent characteristics of living the rags to riches lifestyle is that "there is only one person who decides who I am and what I do, and that is me." You won't allow people to know you by the same name as the government because the government doesn't decide who you are. This is especially prominent since there can be hundreds of thousands of people by the same name, but there is only one Jay-Z, or
Reverend Run, or Chali 2-na. Instead one must decide the name that best fits oneself.
5)
Vocabulary: Would you like to know another thing hip-hop has in common with Shakespeare? Not since William Shakespeare has another form of expression added more words into our national lexicon than hip-hop,
Stephen Colbert might be a close second. Examples:
crunkn. a type of hip-hop or rap music characterized by repeated shouted catchphrases and elements typical of electronic dance music, such as prominent bass.
bling bling (uncountable)
(slang) Shiny jewelry that displays wealth, such as a diamond ring or a stylish gold necklace or bracelet.
Jiggy
(slang) Having fun, enjoying oneself totally; losing one's inhibitions, especially when dancing or performing to music.
Props
(slang) "proper respect" or "proper recognition" for another person
Shout Out
N. The act of giving an acknowledgement.
Shorty (plural shorties)
(slang, hip-hop) An attractive young female, especially: a girl who is "down", who is counted among close male friends and sometimes loose sexually; or, one's "girl", one's "boo"; or, a girl that a male does not know but wishes to meet.
The English language is extraordinarily limited, and often times, pre-established words don't express what we would like to express. The solution is easy: make something up. At the very worst, your listeners will not know what you are saying and probably not pay it much mind, and at best, your word(s) will find their way into becoming understood parts of the national lexicon. It is an extraordinary honor to create a "successful" word. It means that you have not only gotten your music and lyrics into some one's head, but you have actually changed the way a large population of people think and speak. The problem is (as is the case with "bling") is that when a hip-hop word becomes too popular and too many people begin to use it, it becomes a little embarrassing, especially for the originator. Let's be honest, when someone like
Rosie O'Donnell begins to use the same lingo as Akon, it looks fine for Rosie, it doesn't look fine for Akon.
As a side-note: Hip-hop music is a part of American culture and history, like it or not, and I hate to be the one to say this, if the parents don't want their kids to listen to hip-hop, then you might consider not making a crusade out of trying to keep it out of your kids' hands. Remember when The Da Vinci Code was made into a movie? It got a lot of press. Huge populations of faithful church-goers were extremely vocal about how offensive and vile they felt the film to be. They alone caused the film to receive far more free press coverage than any professional publicists could have created. The only problem was that all of the complaints managed to neglect the fact that as far as films are concerned, The Da Vinci Code wasn't a very good one. But, as the conventional wisdom goes, any press coverage is good press coverage. The long and the short of it is that a huge population of people went to see the film just to find out what the fuss was all about. End result? a mediocre film grossed far more than it would have had the religious right kept quiet. You would have thought they might have learned after protesting the book version. Or protesting the Harry Potter series. Or protesting the film Dogma. Or protesting the film Last Temptation of Christ. Certainly I am not suggesting that people not speak their opinions, but there is one thing about kids that parents aught to keep in mind: kids will get a hold of just about anything their parents hate one way or another. If you really want your kids to keep from listening to hip-hop, you should get a hold of ever hip-hop album you can, listen to them often, listen to them loud, sing along, and, most importantly, dance to them. I can almost guarantee your kids will be so mortified that they will not go near a hip-hop record for at least the ages of 12-17.
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