If hip-hop should die before I wake.

In any genre of music, garbage can be found. It always will be. There will always be people to buy the swill that some record label big wig decided would be the next hot thing, just because it's the next hot thing. That kind of goes without saying. However, the world of hip-hop seems to have two separate factions. The artists trying to spread the word of what it's actually like to live where they lived and the artists who continue to perpetuate this idea of a "baller." This post comes from a seething disgust within me for the latter.

I happened upon BET's Rap City: Tha Basement the other day, only to find a video that did nothing but fuel my hatred for what this genre of music is becoming. More and more the hip-hop world is being overrun with rappers who insist on rapping about how much money they have, spend and use to acquire "bitches" and/or "hoes." The video that sparked this rant is "Splash/Byrd Gang Money" by Byrd Gang feat. Jim Jones, Juelz Santana, Chink Santana and NOE. I offer a little sampling of the lyrics, which mind you I had to transcribe on my own because I couldn't find any site (not even one of the largest collections of hip-hop lyrics on the Internet) that had them... this point will come in handy later, remember it.

"Goddamn I'm so cold,
Money, hoes and clothes, that's all a young n***a knows.
Big bank rolls, my neck froze,
Hoes that wanna roll,
We slammin' them Bentley doors."
(Side note: The second line of this is actually a Notorious B.I.G. lyric... recycled).

Now, in comparison I'd like to offer some lyrics from an artist that I consider to be of the first ilk. The ones that bring some sort of reality of their own lives to the table.

"Me and Willa raised three daughters all by herself, with no help,
I think about a struggle and I find the strength in myself,
These words, melt in my mouth, they hot like the jail cell in the South
before my n***a Core bailed me out."
("Get By" - Talib Kweli)

Artists like Talib Kweli, Cunninlynguists, Dead Prez and even Kanye West (before the fame got to him) rap about the struggles they have faced and overcome. They urge the hip-hop community to strive to rise above. They don't preach about hustlin' everyday and staying in that lifestyle. They don't perpetuate the idea of stacking paper and weighing down necks with diamonds and gold. Some say art mirrors life and that people need something to relate to... can people in the Bronx really relate to slamming doors on Bentleys? To having 24" all-chrome rims? Or can they relate to raising babies in a world full of economic unrest? To struggling everyday to find the next meal to put on the table or a way to put a child through college? The argument is that the flashy side of hip-hop is something to aspire to achieve, but at the same time much of work within that faction of hip-hop relates to hustlin' and dealing... not to getting an education or rising above your situation. Somewhere along the way hip-hop got confused and now hustlin' is glorified and revered. When in reality, that life eventually gets you two places -- in a jail cell or in the ground.

Rapping about bitches and hoes and how your neck stay froze, doesn't bring anything to world of hip-hop. Nor does rapping about how awesome you are when a handful of people know your name (see above lack of lyrics point). It's garbage. It's nonsense. It does not facilitate change in a culture that seeks it. It does not provoke thought or action other than finding a way to get whatever materialistic nonsense XXX rapper is blathering about.

I suppose these points can be made about any genre. But perhaps it is the most prevalent in hip-hop because of the size of the genre. In the late '90s, rap became America's biggest selling music genre. Recently it has declined. There's an interesting article from Time that discusses the possibities of why hip-hop is on the downturn.
"Longtime rap fans are doing the math and coming to the same conclusions as the music's voluminous critics. In February, the filmmaker Byron Hurt released Beyond Beats and Rhymes, a documentary notable not just for its hard critique but for the fact that most of the people doing the criticizing were not dowdy church ladies but members of the hip-hop generation who deplore rap's recent fixation on the sensational."

Hip-hop started out of necessity. Out of a necessity for change within the music industry. It started underground because people needed something to relate to. Can the average hip-hop consumer now really relate to stacking millions in the back of a mansion with 32 friends making in rain on a handful of strippers? I know I can't. What I can relate to is honesty, whether it be about hustlin' in the streets when it was necessary not glorified or struggling to raise a family or watching a friend die at the hand of a drug dealer. I cannot relate to $500 bottles of champagne or diamonds bigger than my face. It would be an interesting world if hip-hop could get back what it was when it meant something. I can feel a change bubbling under the surface in the industry. Let's just hope for hip-hop's sake, the genre doesn't die before it wakes.