Mainstream Hip-Hop Destroying Black America

Today, mainstream hip-hop has become the musical equivalent of redundancy and insignificance. The endless references to sex and materialism coupled with the horrendous lyricism only begs the question of what happened to a musical genre that was the artistic rebuttal to oppression and injustice.

The current fixation on subject matter such as “booty”, “bling bling”, and “thug-life” is beginning to border on the ludicris (pun intended). However, it would be naïve to assume that hip-hop is based only on lyrics, it isn’t. The beat has always been an integral component of hip-hop and was also taken into account in the political rap of the 1970’s and 80’s. Naturally, one is more prone to listen to a message when it sounds appealing.

However, the problem arises when the beat becomes the only criteria of judgement. This is exactly the case today, resulting in trash lyrics involving “female humps” and “diamond encrusted teeth (grills)” become the norm. The absolute nonsense these “artists” propagate is degenerative not only for the genre, but for the entire culture that looks up to it.

These artists are only part of the problem. The real problem is the entity that has turned hip-hop into the joke that it is today, namely, rogue entities of the US government. Similar to how the CIA sold drugs to black neighbourhoods in the early 1980’s to undermine the African-American community, it has filtered hip-hop of its political undertones and has replaced it with messages of commercial materialism, sex, and thug-life to maintain the status-quo. It is no wonder that major labels only sign those artists who will conform to its demands. The artists that do conform are merely pawns working for the elite structure. As a result, African-Americans are losing their most effective vehicle of political dissent due to capitalistic greed. Slavery still exists, albeit in a subtler form.

Those who have the audacity to suggest that political hip-hop was a “fad” of the past and now irrelevant only have to look back a couple of months ago where thousands upon thousands of African-American citizens were left out in the cold in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Other than an inarticulate and crude display of protest by Kanye West on a live on-air telethon on NBC, where was the hip-hop community? Probably too busy trying on their new “grills”.

I am reminded of a quote from one of the most influential personalities of the 20th century. Definitely the perfect message for those who have lost all connection with history and reality.

"If we don't stand for something, we may fall for anything."

-SHEIKH EL HAJJ MALIK EL SHABAAZ (Malcolm X)

copyright Aurangzeb Qureshi 2006