Culture and Lifestyle
Theme Music: "Love Come Down" by Evelyn Champagne King
Peace,
This past weekend, I facilitated a workshop on Hip Hop & Social Justice. The conversation centered around the direction of the music, the conditions of the community, and how to have the music assist in improving the community's conditions. Usually, I hate convos like this because you tend to get a revisionist yearning for the "good ol days"of Hip Hop when everyone was conscious and positive and everything was good in Black America. This discussion was different, mainly due to the makeup of the participants. There was a good mix of artists, concerned community members, and social activists participating. Additionally, many of the artists were also activists and organizers. Another difference was the discussion of solutions versus bemoaning the current state of hip hop. The workshop was part of a much larger initiative to use the music to help repair and/or develop distressed communities. Here are some of my reflections from the discussion:
- We have to realize that hip hop is neutral, and not positive or negative like many make it out to be. The music will simply reflect the prevailing conditions and mentality of the time. You can't blame the music, you have to blame the conditions that produce the people who make the music. And while you can't change the music, you can help develop the conditions within the community to produce healthier people.
- Regardless of if we want to admit it or not, there is a economic component to this as well. As I've written before, when kids want to be a rapper to make it out of their conditions, then they'll say anything to be rich and famous. We have to create alternatives to the attractive options beyond sports, drugs and hip hop.
- One of the biggest things that we're battling is the idea of a "Hip Hop Lifestyle". The whole idea of a HH lifestyle is to market products to a young and naive demographic who thinks that HH is their Culture for more profits. To them, I say this: If HH is your culture, what does it teach you about women? What does it teach you about politics? How will it ensure your survival? The main reason that people think that HH is a culture is because we exist in a time devoid of a movement (i.e. Civil Rights or Black Power). In the absence of true Culture, the young people cling onto the music as a form of definition. If HH is a culture, that shows the vacuum that we have allowed to exist in the place of a vehicle of development for the youth.
Peace,
This past weekend, I facilitated a workshop on Hip Hop & Social Justice. The conversation centered around the direction of the music, the conditions of the community, and how to have the music assist in improving the community's conditions. Usually, I hate convos like this because you tend to get a revisionist yearning for the "good ol days"of Hip Hop when everyone was conscious and positive and everything was good in Black America. This discussion was different, mainly due to the makeup of the participants. There was a good mix of artists, concerned community members, and social activists participating. Additionally, many of the artists were also activists and organizers. Another difference was the discussion of solutions versus bemoaning the current state of hip hop. The workshop was part of a much larger initiative to use the music to help repair and/or develop distressed communities. Here are some of my reflections from the discussion:
- We have to realize that hip hop is neutral, and not positive or negative like many make it out to be. The music will simply reflect the prevailing conditions and mentality of the time. You can't blame the music, you have to blame the conditions that produce the people who make the music. And while you can't change the music, you can help develop the conditions within the community to produce healthier people.
- Regardless of if we want to admit it or not, there is a economic component to this as well. As I've written before, when kids want to be a rapper to make it out of their conditions, then they'll say anything to be rich and famous. We have to create alternatives to the attractive options beyond sports, drugs and hip hop.
- One of the biggest things that we're battling is the idea of a "Hip Hop Lifestyle". The whole idea of a HH lifestyle is to market products to a young and naive demographic who thinks that HH is their Culture for more profits. To them, I say this: If HH is your culture, what does it teach you about women? What does it teach you about politics? How will it ensure your survival? The main reason that people think that HH is a culture is because we exist in a time devoid of a movement (i.e. Civil Rights or Black Power). In the absence of true Culture, the young people cling onto the music as a form of definition. If HH is a culture, that shows the vacuum that we have allowed to exist in the place of a vehicle of development for the youth.
posted by I Majestic at 8:29 AM
1 Comments:
i feel you 100% ... even KRS One is guilty of promoting this idea of hip-hop being a way of life.
hip hop culture is actually a SUB CULTURE of black culture. not actually a culture in of itself.
but i feel you, i hate forums like that because heads just end up dogging 50 Cents and Lil Kim...
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