The essence of Hip Hop
About a year ago I started working on a presentation to highlight the basic differences between Hip Hop & Rap. Somewhere in the fog of my project, I turned on the television to find, had been killed Hip Hop and Rap declared legally insane. And while held George Bush responsible for the war in Iraq and a weak economy, everything else becomes America was related to Hip Hop. Drugs, teen pregnancy, violence, leaving high school dropout rate, the victimization of women (including rape and abuse), the reason racism exists in America, the murder of police, pornography, I'm not out global warming. Well maybe not global warming, but there was a major witch-hunt taking place. Later I saw David Banner and Master P in front of a committee in Washington, DC, defense of his music.
It was all surreal and as I watched the corporate media U.S. doing what they do best, a sensational story for ratings (the first example, after the shootings at Virginia Tech University, half of communication went so far as to place a photo of 50 Cent with the photo of the shooter, saying that his music was responsible for influencing the murderer to commit violence).
Oprah's Town "Meeting on Hip Hop", BET's "Hip Hop vs. America," "Paula Zahn of Hip Hop: art or poison" allows black leaders out of touch, right wing white, and angry all groups of women shouting "Hip Hop" … "Hip Hop negatively affects the young people to do this Hip Hop promotes …"," ….", "Hip Hop is the source of all evils of society." To make matters worse people in these panels that were invited to speak on behalf of hip hop and rap were mostly members of the rap industry fought to preserve the source of profits. Legitimate members hip hop community in these 3 panels could be counted on one hand, the common city (Oprah Meeting on Hip Hop), Chuck D & Nelson George (Hip Hop vs. America), and a couple of others. Hip Hop was not giving a fair opportunity to articulate the U.S., which it really is pumped out into radio waves and the most important machine Viacom (MTV, BET and VH1) was not Hip Hop, but a commercialized version called Hip Hop Rap. And as people continued to confuse rap with hip hop, things totally out of control with the declaration of the year "Hip Hop Is Dead". This statement was made by Nas, when he released his only title for his album 2007, "Hip Hop Is Dead".
Do you really think that the statement or was using as a clever way to create a buzz and draw attention on their album release? His response to the controversy that bothers me more, saying he was referring not only to hip hop, both the music scene generally throughout in terms of creativity. While agree with him 100% because of the lack of creativity, could not believe that he saw as the hip hop once an active member in the music that, after being exposed to a virus called mercantilism, suffered and died.
Fortunately, hip hop had primary means to represent to and defend against the assault … is … Please wait … I'm talking about … after the magazine began trixin Source 'with rap, history love hip hop over and took to the sidewalk. And hip hop Hot 97 lived in the beginning but after that attracted enough listeners deal with this claim, raised the rent so high that lowered hip-hop from the penthouse apt, a study of a room in the basement, finally back to the streets.
Went when I decided to expand my presentation to do more than highlight the differences between the culture of Hip Hop & Rap trade, I also had to prove that Hip Hop was still alive. I decided the best way to do this is to present a clearer and more detailed description of what was Hip Hop. I had to go deeper than just identifying the 5 elements, that is what the original idea was, but to explain why people love hip hop, what it means to live the hip hop, and what others separated the 5 elements of hip-hop rap. As a result not only creates a 3-part presentation, I developed what I feel is the most important for this presentation, what I call the "Essence of Culture".
Hip Hop has a soul, an essence that is composed of 3 main factors: creativity, originality, and Skill Development. These are the main factors that fuel hip-hop culture. It is the force that governs and the basis for which it rests. Than makes the art, fashion media and hip hop. When the music industry tried to bring the element of music hip hop culture to the mainstream, not included (or deliberately excluded) of the essence, leaving them with nothing but a product called rap music. Once an item (or person) of the hip culture hop is separated from its essence, is disconnected and is no longer part of culture.
My full presentation on the Hip Hop culture can be viewed at:
http://nuflav.com/HipHopvsRapWhatis.html
You can contact Ray Nelson feedback@nuflav.com
About the Author
Ray Nelson is publisher of www.nuflav.com a hip hop & urban online magazine / directory. He is also the producer of an urban video program called “Nu Flav Presents”. Not only has he been involved in hip hop since 1980, but he’s also a long time activist in the urban community. He’s received an Elm / Ivy Award from Yale University for his community service. His writing career began in the early 90′s contributing article to the Inner City News, an African American newspaper distributed in the Greater New Haven area. He went on to start his on publication “CT Flava Magazine”. He ended circulation of the magazine in 1998 to begin his present venture, Nu Flav Media.
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