It’s pointless.
It’s negative.
Why does this exist?
This is worse than country.
It’s bad for the children, where is the artistic value?
Over the years many people have used broad, misinformed statements like this to try and demean and write hip hop off as an inferior genre. Supposedly only consisting of talentless ignorants yelling nonsense over repetitive, bland, noise. However the reality is, people who vocalize these opinions are the ignorants, themselves. Even Keith Richards thought it would be a clever idea to denounce rap as only for “tone deaf people”.
To put it bluntly, these people are sorely mistaken. I mean sure, I’m not going to deny the existence of bad rap music, but hip hop is such a complex and versatile genre. Rapper Kendrick Lamar released what many critics hailed as the best album of last year, yet people still love to brand it as a useless artform. It makes no sense. There is so much more to hip hop than what the uneducated try to diminish it to. Hip hop has been the catalyst for social and societal change, on so many different occasions, it’s about time it gets some recognition.
The roots of Hip hop can be traced back to 1970s New York. Looking to make something for people to party to, DJ “Kool Herc” started rhyming words over a beat, and inadvertently planted the seeds for the greatest genre of all time. Quickly, the music transformed into a powerful political movement. Despite its association with crime, drugs and sex, the music hip hop produced addressed ideas of racial injustice and the universal struggles of being an African-American, issues any rational thinking human being could see the importance spreading. These themes caused the genre to gain a primarily African American following and be dismissed by music critics as a “passing trend”. After being brushed off throughout the 80s (the rap awards weren’t even televised by the Grammy’s in 1989), Hip hop finally branched out into the mainstream in 1999, when Lauryn Hill swept the Grammy’s taking home five awards, including album of the year. At the turn of the new millennium, pop artists like Britney Spears and NSync, which had dominated the radio throughout the 90s, were being replaced by the likes of Eminem and Jay Z.
With hip hop’s increasing availability, more and more people began to connect with the messages being portrayed. With Eminem’s prevalence in the mainstream, suburban white boys came flocking and hip hop was propelled from being the voice of African-Americans, to the voice of the ignored everywhere. Hip hop had become the language that everyone could speak.
Hip hop had always been a political movement, primarily focussed on provoking societal change, and even despite the themes of misogyny, violence and drug use, embedded within hip hop there were, and still are, greater themes to the music which have caused huge societal change. Whether it be, NWA’s attack on censorship which led to the existence of things like South Park and Game of Thrones, or Kanye West’s rejection of the “gangsta” image, inspiring an era of hip hop artists such as Drake, The Weeknd and Frank Ocean (artists almost every teenager has at least two songs from on rotation in their spotify), or Kendrick Lamar whose performances never fail to spark widespread media debate regarding race relations in America. The point is, hip hop culture has been responsible for so many aspects of mainstream society.
Hip hop was even responsible for bringing autotune to the mainstream. Even if you don’t care for the music itself, the ideas and messages brought to light have been essential to the growth of Western society. Basically what I’m trying to explain is, if you hate the existence of hip hop, you probably also hate your favourite tv show, favourite video game or maybe even your favourite musical artist. Just saying.
Hip hop’s ridiculous influence extends even further, to where it even has an affect on the way people speak. In 2004, Cam’ron coined the phrase “U mad?” in his interview with the detestable Bill O’Reilly. However polarising the phrase may be, it’s presence throughout social media has been more prominent than anything to ever come out of Justin Timberlake’s mouth.
Words such as dope, twerk, bling have all been added to the oxford dictionary, making them an official part of the English language. If language is representative of our society and our language has been swayed by urban, hip hop patois, then how does the argument that hip hop holds no merit still exist? Hip hop’s complete saturation in mainstream America has been undeniable since the masses started adhering to its ways. Hip hop has evolved into so much more than a genre. It’s a culture, a lifestyle, a religion, an artform, a civil rights movement. Hip hop is the fastest growing genre of all time, a veritable musical tsunami, and the wave show no signs of slowing down. It has inundated the masses, creating so many trends and so many styles. It has a left a giant footprint on the mainstream so colossal, that only the downright ignorant and exceptionally stubborn could ignore.
By Caleb Turnbull
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