Kyle_Rayner
Wow, please, tell us more. 3nodding blaugh
Music is what I do, and I like to put my few anthropology/sociology classes to use. 'Cause nothing's better than a college kid with a little bit of knowledge thinking himself a genius. domokun
Part of the displacement has been, as mentioned earlier, the shift from Escaping the Streets to Bringing the Streets With Us.
When gun wounds became something to brag about in your songs, when someone who grew up in a home in a set of wealthy suburbs fabricated a life on the streets, when beating your wife and being a "playa" became what you wanted from life, you were no longer singing about the Hip Hop culture.
A lot of the blame can be traced to MTV and such, but it's mostly just the romanticization of that lifestyle. Why escape it when it's cool to live it?
Hip Hop isn't specifically Rap or R&B, it's about wading through s**t and turning it into gold. It's about being strong and overcoming the trappings of the life, not celebrating your latest glock-fight.
There's nothing wrong with Rap music that's primarily Dance. In fact, that's why I like Missy Elliot. Very seldom does she pretend to be a part of the Hip Hop lifestyle. She's about fun beats and talking about how hot she is. Yeah, it's pompous and fluff, but it's fun. And much better than telling me about how she had such a hard life and I'll never understand and now she's brought that life with her.
That's where the line really is: Hip Hop never claimed that I couldn't understand them because I hadn't lived that life. It tried to EDUCATE me on that life.
If you're looking for music that's still hip hop, I recommend the bands listed above, or to just go to your record store and flip through albums. Pick up something that looks older. Something without excessive jewelry or breasts on the cover. Something that doesn't have a "includes the smash hit..." sticker on it.
It may be the indie kid in me talking about, but you're going to have to go outside the mainstream to find Hip Hop. It's rewarding though, and if it's your thing, definitely worth it.
