I love hip-hop!
I love hip-hop music. I love hip-hop fashion. I love hip-hop culture. A multi-racial, multi-lingual, international phenomenon, hip-hop is arguably the most significant cultural and artistic movement of the last forty years.
I am a proud member of the hip-hop generation, defined by Bakari Kitwana, former editor of The Source Magazine, as the population of black youth born between 1965 and 1984 (although a redefinition is likely merited to reflect hip-hop's aforementioned diversity and longevity). When I first heard the poignant inquiry of the hip-hop coming-of-age love story Brown Sugar (2002), "So, when did you fall in love with hip-hop?" it arrested my consciousness and caused me to reflect upon the origins of my own love affair with hip-hop. (For the record, I fell in love with hip-hop when I heard A Tribe Called Quest's classic album Midnight Marauders (1993). It literally changed my life!)
I am also a part of an ever-widening group of young, seminary-trained clergy who closely identify with hip-hop culture: pastors, ministers and even professors of religion for whom hip-hop was never a passing fade but an ever-present reality. It is my two decades-old love of hip-hop that presently fuels my doctoral study on the contextualization of hip-hop spirituality for the church.
But at the risk of sounding out-of-touch, outdated and even uncool, a significant risk in the realm of hip-hop, I am increasingly troubled by certain contemporary moves in hip-hop culture that embrace the occult and make a mockery of faith. I understand freedom of speech and expression. I even subscribe to the belief that what others might perceive as vulgarities can actually be an authentic witness to the truth. But I find recent attacks in hip-hop against religious faith and God to be, well, wack!
Read more here
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Lyrical Discourse: Watch The Throne
In sifting through the troves of writings from the pop culture cognoscenti regarding Kanye West and Jay-Z's album Watch The Throne, two dominant critiques emerged. One, this opus is masterpiece of opulence, decadence, or whatever other terms one can find that mean boastfully materialistic. Two, this album's bombast sits outside of the nation's zeitgeist, particularly given the nation's political and economic turmoil of the last few weeks.
Are these themes fair to point out? Sure. Much of Watch The Throne's lyrics pay homage to lifestyles most people cannot replicate, absent some CGI and the NZT pill from the movie Limitless. These assertions, however, are easy to make, and frankly, are the equivalent of political red meat for critics. It is sexy yet cliché to assert the trope of excess as it relates to hip hop, and overshadows other themes that merit equally robust dialogue, especially given the ongoing debate of hip hop's influence within the African-American landscape.
Read more here
Are these themes fair to point out? Sure. Much of Watch The Throne's lyrics pay homage to lifestyles most people cannot replicate, absent some CGI and the NZT pill from the movie Limitless. These assertions, however, are easy to make, and frankly, are the equivalent of political red meat for critics. It is sexy yet cliché to assert the trope of excess as it relates to hip hop, and overshadows other themes that merit equally robust dialogue, especially given the ongoing debate of hip hop's influence within the African-American landscape.
Read more here
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Introducing the King of Hip-HopWe crunch the numbers - but who takes the crown?
Now more than three decades old as a recorded medium, hip-hop is deeply embedded in popular culture – to the point where its stars seem not only larger than life but also, as Rick Ross once put it, "deeper than rap." But even as they sell out arenas and top the pop charts, rappers still court the respect and esteem of their hip-hop peers. The title King of Hip-Hop still means something.
In that spirit, just as we did in June with the Queen of Pop, we've crunched a pile of data to try to determine who is the current King of Hip-Hop.
We're not looking for the all-time greatest, although many of our contenders would vie for that crown. Some of them have only been recording a couple of years; others have been in the game since the 1990s. But that's what makes hip-hop exciting – it's plausible for someone who was watching cartoons when Jay-Z dropped his debut album to emerge as a contender for the title.
Read more here
Thursday, August 4, 2011
BET's Commercial vs. Community Interests: Questions Linger After Killer Mike Ban
July was supposed to be a busy month for Michael Render, aka Killer Mike, aka Mike Bigga.
His second national appearance as mentor to a want-to-be rapper would air on MTV's "Made." And before he left the country for a European concert tour, he had all sorts of promotional appearances for "Burn," a politically-charged single from Render's latest album, "PL3DGE." But that kind of pop-star schedule didn't even include the biggest thing to happen to Render in July.
Before the month was over, Black Entertainment Television (BET) would refuse to air the "Burn" video for what the channel described as violent and "convoluted" content. "Burn" voices a musical cornucopia of post-recession frustrations ranging from elevated joblessness and home foreclosures, to corrupt civic and religious organizations, the bank bail-out and police brutality. The network's decision to ban the video reignited a long-running debate about the politics, place and purpose of the 31-year-old network and made BET the target of what can best be described as a 21st-century mob.
On Twitter, Facebook and in the comments section of several Web sites, people openly critiqued not just the decision to ban Killer Mike's "Burn" video, but also an alleged double standard at work at BET. BET embargoed what several people described as a timely social critique while at the same time airing videos and reality shows that tacitly endorse stereotypes, and feature nearly-naked women and staged acts of violence.
Read the rest here
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)