IS HIP HOP DEAD?

Is hip hop dead?

I am asking this question because so many people have said that this music once so radical and new is dead, Nas included. In fact to quote Nas from an XXL article when asked what he meant when proclaiming hip hop is dead he said

”Yeah Hip-Hop is Dead cause America is dead culturally. I’m proud to be an American, no matter what. But American culture is stale; you know what I’m saying? We keep regurgitating the same sh*t. And it ain’t exciting.”

He went on to say

“The sh*t was exciting. But it ain’t the ghetto secret no more. Kids everywhere know it. And that’s what we want - we want it be heard. But now it’s really corny. And I still love hip-hop, but it’s like, the way the game is now, it’s like, F*ck rap, get money. I don’t think nobody cares about respect as an artist, because at the end of the day, everybody is just chasing the paper. So f*ck it. Hip Hop is Dead. Let’s piss on it, bury the sh*t and get our money.”

Strong views form the man but I believe to answer this question we need to look at the many problems that face hip hop to see if any of these nails in hip hops coffin have really killed it stone dead like a bullet to the head.

First we have the super producers and the buy a beat mentality. In times past an artist would craft an album with what ever means was available to them. Once you achieved a level of success or a label believed in you a producer would work with the artist/band. In many other forms of music this is still the case. In hip hop however it has become dominated buy a hand full of producers and those at the top of the game transcend genre for example the Neptune’s have produced for pop acts as well as hip hop acts with equal success and for a minute every new artist was almost expected to have a Neptune’s produced track on their album if it s was going to top the charts. Timberland, kanye and the Neptune’s have for the last few years been the producers with some of the highest output in the industry putting out massive amounts of beats and rejuvenated or keeping alive many a music career. The price we pay for these hits is creativity because when record companies demand hits those hits come with a price firstly because it cost to get kanye to produce your album and secondly because the artist does not have to dig deep into their own soul to find something of value musically. Kanye did it for them and as we can see music becomes interchangeable no one has their own sound in fact they all sound alike, and when a producer does come with a new sound like Lil Jon did with crunk it soon becomes the latest bandwagon to jump on and everyone wants that crunk sound.

Secondly underground artist and younger up and coming artist in the main part are not in studios experimenting and trying to come up with something new that shakes the foundation of music they are downloading instrumentals from limewire to create their music or if not they are trying to recreate that Kanye or Timberland sound which has become the standard for all urban music today. This means that the life blood of the music is drained out like empty carcass being devoured by itself, a dog chewing on its own tail and feeling proud that it finally caught it. Why are their so many hip hop, grime, R n B artists out their and so few of them ever think about learning to play an instrument? Why do they feel the way forward is to buy a beat or get someone to make a beat for you? What has happened to creating your own sound? You own voice?

This brings me to the third of the triad of nails in the hip hop coffin. Violent gun talk low grade sex chat, booty chatter never more than that. Why is it that the main focus of all our music has become childish bravado? Bigging yourself up at the expense of your fellow musicians telling them how you gonna kill them. As may of you know I have been selling my music on the streets as a way of getting the music out there. I am not the only one and many times I will buy music form other rappers or music people in general. And most of the music that I get is the same talk all the time, emcees killing people on CD or telling me how they hurt you because their skills are deadly. In my song ‘REVOLUTION’ when I said ‘rise up all you dead emcees’. I was also talking to all the emcees who think they are alive but in fact they are the walking dead. They are dead because their whole focus is death and in turn the gun becomes their god, a god of destruction. What’s worse is most of these emcees don’t even live what they speak about. That’s why I say every generation does need a new revolution. They need a revolution of mind and spirit or they will fall pray to the 50 cent philosophy of get rich or die trying. Every human being dreams but when the dream becomes a night mare its time to wake up.

Guns and crime are a reality of our times and I am not saying not to tackle these things in the music because music is a voice to highlight and challenge any and every aspect of our lives. But what about the other aspects of our lives when we laugh, love, live and cry as well as die. So many artists have gone before us with so many different takes on music and on hip hop it seems to be a crime that we have been challended or allowed ourselves to become focused solely on the most negative aspects of life.

What power could we find if we started to once again use words to say something with meaning and tried to reach deeper into the souls of the listener. To make them think and connect with the music we are making hip hop was once a diverse ever changing power house of sound ready to shake the ground. Speaking about freedom as well as partying till the break of dawn and the planet rock, hip hop don’t stop. The battle should no longer be against each other the battle should be to resurrect hip hop from the clutches of the corporate pimps and the studio gangsters.

I don’t want to see the end of 50 cent sometimes we all want to be in the club with a bottle of bub but check this, I want his throne to be big enough so KRS 1 can sit with him I want to see the likes of Rakim, Chuck D, A Tribe Called Quest, Brand Nubian, Arrested Development, De La Soul, Heiroglyphics, Das FX, Organized Konfusion. Digable Planets, The Fugees all on that thrown with many philosophies not just get rich or die trying. The truth is 50cent can’t always be found in the club with a bottle of bub because he is a multi-millionaire businessman who is more likely to be found in the boardroom not supplying people with X but looking after his stocks and shares and building his empire. But to the younger brothers who devour his music he is never in the boardroom because the image he sells to them is that of a street thug, ghetto hustler. Gangsterism and the denigration of women is the greatest nail in the coffin of hip hop and a reflection that inside we have become lost as a people AND AS KANYE SAID WE AT WAR WITH OURSELFS. It’s this war that has become reflected in hip hop. So, In answer to the question. Is hip hop dead? The answer is no hip hop is not dead it can not die and will never die because it is just a reflection of us. The question should really be are we dead?

Elavi AKA the Resurrector Live long and prosper

CLOCKWORK by ELAVI

WWW.ELAVI.COM