What Happened To The Real Hip Hop

So if you all are familiar with Joe Budden (the most underrated rapper EVER), you would understand the title of my blog Why Try to Fit in When You’re a Standout? comes from a Halfway House song “Just To Be Different.” This sets the perfect stage for my inaugural post—a topic I have been thinking about since high school, and had many conversations with people about. What happened to the real hip hop?

This is the first attempt to my knowledge to describe hip hop as a dichotomous variable. That is, not to talk about the overall effects of hip hop, as most analyses attempt, but to describe hip hop as a force modified by two competing sectors—real hip hop and what I call Sambo hip hop.

Let me tell you what real hip hop is to me. I’m talking about the hip hop that delineates the struggle working families have in inner city and lower income communities, and how the current social/political system contributes to both the negative stigma around these populations and the prison revolving door. This can be explained by two songs.

Geto Boyz “My Mind Playin Tricks On Me” where Bushwick Bill (the short dude) raps about how he was hallucinating about Halloween and beating up this big dude, and turned out to me punching the pavement:

This year Halloween fell on a weekend
Me and Geto Boys are trick-or-treatin
Robbin little kids for bags
Till an old man got behind our ass
So we speeded up the pace
Took a look back, and he was right before our face
He'd be in for a squabble no doubt
So I swung and hit the nigga in his mouth
He was goin down, we figured
But this was no ordinary nigga
He stood about six or seven feet
Now, that's the nigga I'd be seein in my sleep
So we triple-teamed on him
Droppin them motherfuckin B's on him
The more I swung the more blood flew
Then he disappeared and my boys disappeared, too
Then I felt just like a fiend
It wasn't even close to Halloween
It was dark as fuck on the streets
My hands were all bloody, from punchin on the concrete
God damn, homie
My mind is playin tricks on me

Bushwick Bill explained this verse as analogous to being so hungry at night in the ghetto that you start to hallucinate there is food on the table and you finally realize there’s nothing to eat in the house. It is an example of the social conditions that inhibit people from escaping the culture of poverty prevalent in many urban communities.

Notorious BIG “Juicy,” where he justifies selling drugs to feed his daughter cause there isn’t other employment that he is either qualified for or employers won’t hire.

Yeah, this album is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin
To all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of that called the police On me when I was just tryin' to make some money to feed my daughters
And all the niggaz in the struggle, you know what I'm sayin'?

This is showing the constant battle of morality vs. pragmatism ever present in the inner city. The political system in New York (Rockefeller Laws) made it almost a given that BIG would end up in prison seeking a way to feed his family. Upper class people (and those fake people going broke thinking they are) think in terms of morals and idealism. A majority of them can do this because their fundamental needs are met. Refer to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs for more information, but to be brief, these higher order needs can be addressed and thought about because their most fundamental needs—food, clothing, shelter--are all secure. These type of laws assume everyone in the applicable society are on the same needs hierarchy—which we know is not true at all. But tell a family with no income and staggering bills about that he can’t eat when there is a market for a product he has access to all because of some idealism. He’d slap you in the mouth for being so dumb. So when people like Bill O’Reilly bash rap artists because of their lyrics , please be more intelligent and analyze them in the proper context.

Next, real hip hop is a form of expression, like poetry or prose writing, not a well crafted but super marketed compilation of lines designed only to make money. Consider Nas in “The Genesis” off of his much acclaimed Illmatic:

When its real…you doing this without a record contract

This statement implies the humility of real hip hop, its therapeutic nature, its ability to touch souls through lyrics. This can be seen in Joe Budden’s “10 Minutes:”

Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father (damn)
Some days I just miss my father
Some days I wanna relapse on redline
Cuz he'll be gone for 26 months fed time
I try to maintain through all this
And pray to God pop keep the same clean date and 4 dicks
My pockets flat kid
You do the math on $5.15 an hour full time after taxes
That wasn't good enough to keep my MO
Shit that wasn't good enough to complete my demo, for real
Some days I don't wanna be seen
And some days I don't shower, I don't wanna be clean
Look, sometimes the truth could hurt you
So I blow my cig smoke right at the Truth commercial
Some days I don't wanna be bothered
Some days I just miss my father
And even if by a miracle he makes it half way out
It wont be parole y'all, it be the half way house but NAH
That's not the right path for a Budden
Cuz we're addicts, addicts can't do half of nothin'

Even though Joe Budden is an admitted manic depressant, we can see the humility in a person admitting he misses his father, its therapeutic nature to him, and its ability to touch people with similar circumstances.

And lastly, real hip hop applied to your own life can teach you how to grind to the fullest. For instance, “Free” off of Freeway’s 2003 classic Philadelphia Freeway:

This is for my niggas that grind from 10 to 10
Another words all day duck the cops ‘cause they wanna be…
FREE

Now taken literally, it is apparent that he is talking about grinding on the street each day. But I have found that applied to my situation it means I got to work/study extra hard each day ducking the underminers and people who want to see you fall in order to create a better life for myself and my future family by using my intelligence and credentials. In fact, I have a screensaver on my parents computer that says “I Hustle Day In Day Out.” My friends have seen this wonder what am I talking about? And I would say it’s a mindset, that works best if you take the transferable lessons and apply them to your own life. A thoughtful analysis of rap music works to the listeners advantage. These lyrics and ones similar can also be a source of motivation when you are tired and want to slack off on your hustle.

But then hip hop got distorted. An overabundance of Sambo rappers came in tryin’ to claim fame to their name rappin’ not to enlighten the urban/suburban masses but to make a dollar quick. It was like the rap game turned into a get rich quick scheme. A verse from Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” off of Late Registration explains the phenomenon well:

Cause they made us hate our selves and love their wealth that’s why
Shorty’s yellin’ ‘Where the Ballas At?’
Drug Dealer buy Jordan Black Man buy Crack
And the White man get paid off of all of that

We see how this manifests itself in the Sambo hip hop culture. Take “Hand Clap” by Hurricane Chris:

One for tha money,two for tha show
Clap yo hands if you gotta bankroll
One for tha money, two for tha show
Clap yo hand if yo money don't fold

Now if you have seen this video it is apparent that Hurricane Chris does not have anywhere near a bank roll. But it gets worse:

yeah im shinin like a light
I got them diamonds on mah wrist
Let me get a hand clap, hand clap

This dude is surely lying, cause if you look at the video, he is wearing a thin 14 karat yellow gold chain with no diamonds. He even holds up his wrist when rappin’ these lines…but there are NO DIAMONDS anywhere near his arm! This guy is delusional.

And last but certainly not least:

I spent 75 dollas on this shirt jus fo tha club

Come on now! The average broke high school student cutting grass in the summer probably could afford a 75 dollar shirt if need be. If you had a bank roll, why are you not indulging in the “delicates of fabrics” as Rick Ross would say—Gucci, Louis Vitton, Prada, etc. This dude must believe he is fooling somebody.

Now Russell Simmons says that the Sambo hip hop culture is a way for poor urban kids to get money and fame. OK I got you, but don’t piss on us and tell us it’s raining. Russell Simmons can say that because he and other record executives are getting a majority of all the money off their artists’ sales. I’m not just talking about dumb stuff like G-Dep signing a 10 year $300,000 contract with Bad Boy, I’m talking about the industry pimping that aims to perpetuate negative black stigma, with executives getting the bulk of the money and with inner city frontman rappers consent.

Chuck D, legendary rapper from Public Enemy details it well:

“[Institutions that glorify hip hop] are the cancers of black manhood in the world, because they have one-dimensionalized and commoditized us into being a one-trick image. We're [shown] throwing money at the camera and flashing jewelry at the camera that could give a town in Africa water for a year."

He also details the link between the sales of hip-hop music to young white Americans, and the amount of pressure on black artists to create more of that content: sex and violence. So these Sambo rappers without any context for rappers such as Gangstar, Nas, KRS-One, Afrika Bambaataa, and others have sustained the white demand and supply of buffoonery. For the continued mental enslavement of Black minds and sustained profitability from white record sales, this new hip hop needs to be racially degrading, intellectually insulting, and creatively stagnant. Sort of like Lupe Fiasco’s “Dumb It Down,” where Lupe describes a record executive’s desire for his artists to dumb down rap music because black kids are starting to believe being smart is cool. These Sambo rappers have done their part to perpetuate a long standing stigma projected on black males as adulterers, criminals, uncouth, uneducated individuals—all for a damn chain and advance.

It’s sort of like the movie Paid in Full, where Rico (the personification of the Sambo hip hop) is always tryin’ to be seen at a club throwing money around, and ultimately hurting everyone around him including himself, and Ace ( the personification of real hip hop) staying low key making sure everyone is eating… “Live and Maintain.”

I say this because with real hip hop, you had people out there trying to educate the masses about the plight of urban America, about the injustices that prevail in the communities, and building self esteem in young black minds. With this Sambo hip hop, with its quasi slave grammar and un-provocative lyrics, the frontman rapper may have a house, but the community suffers as amendable black children learn and are influenced by this music.

This Sambo hip hop can be compared to The Hunger Strike episode of the Boondocks, in which Huey teams up with Rollo Goodlove to bring down BET for its destructive programming. Huey feels betrayed when Goodlove ends the strike to accept a show on BET. Goodlove says:

“Niggas just gonna be niggas. You might as well get this money while you bullshitting.”

Because of the effective acculturation and brainwash years of slavery and oppression have done to us, we think of ourselves as bottom of the totem pole--as people who inherently cannot change their situation. Record executives and others prey off this attitude and make money at our expense.

And lastly, "Half a Brick" by OJ the Juice Man to drive the point home and bring it full circle:

Quarter brick Half a brick Whole brick (AYYY)
Quarter pound Half a pound Whole pound (OKAYY)
Hundred pillz Thousand pillz Servin major weight
Juice mane and gucci maneMake the trap (AYYY)

Whereas in Notorious BIG’s "Juicy," drug dealing was used as a vehicle to provide for his family, OJ the Juice Man is glorifying drug dealing like it’s something for our young men and women to aspire.

To be sure, I am a forever proponent of hip hop and its benefits, but I cannot see the value in (sometimes) personal profit and collective destruction. If not from me, take it from Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He talks about The Win Win as a proposal not worth pursing if both parties do not benefit. With the real hip hop, as I have laid out, the Win Win applies, because both community individuals gain. However, with this Sambo hip hop, the only party that wins are the record executives. The community loses by being bamboozled into believing that ho’s and bust-downs are appropriate references to our black women and by instilling a disinterest in education as the most direct way to upward social mobility. The individual rapper ultimately loses because he most likely will blow his advance check on some bull and then be dropped by the label once his only single stops selling and be like Muddy Waters in Cadillac Records begging Leonard Chess for a loan.

The state of Black America is no longer what it was 50 years ago. No longer are there overwhelming overt political systems designed to hinder black success. No longer can we say the only reason we didn’t get the job is our skin color. No longer will being apathetic about our current situation because we don’t believe we can do anything will suffice. No longer will only praying to God and hoping that “this too shall pass” will do. The biggest threat to our success in this world is our own ignorance, our own lack of political will, our own lack of confidence, esteem, and efficacy, our own willingness to be marginalized, our own desire to be mediocre.

This Sambo hip hop contributes to our demise more so than most other influences. If the teacher at school says you won’t amount to anything, but you have strong support systems at home and strong media outlets that reinforce appropriate behavior, you can attenuate that threat. But if every cultural/social outlet degrades you and your intellect, your people and your history, and all due to a central Sambo hip hop influence, then the old adage

“Sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”

is inherently flawed. In this case, words do more than hurt—they kill.