The UK Hip Hop scene is not amused with Jay Z’s visit to the White House. Wasn't Hip Hop about fighting the power? Apparently things have changed according to British rappers Akala and Lowkey. "Is Hip Hop serving power, or is Hip Hop challenging power," that is question. And, "if the US government loves the same rappers as you love, you have to question whose interests are those rappers serving. “
In a conversations two British minds and an American mind (Akala, Lowkey and Saul Williams) discuss the current state of hip-hop and it's misguided use by the youth of today. They underline the various struggles in making music as an independent artist.
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Ouch.. yes there are so many good points in this segment, but the reality is that the genre of hip hop in the mainstream today is about as "revolutionary" as any other pop genre, i.e. not at all. I don't know the name of the one who made the point that you have to get your music from a better source rather than say that rap is dead. However the average listener doesn't want to work that hard, and even if they by chance stumbled upon something conscious, they might not even like it because it would be something they weren't accustomed to hearing (assuming they take in a steady diet of commercialized rap/music).
ReplyDeleteThen of course is the problem of someone who IS revolutionary making it big and having to dilute their message so they have a chance to compete against the bigger less conscious artists.
I was around when rap was born, and I got to see it grow and expand to the bloated point that it has gotten to now. "Hip hop" is a commodity, "rap" is an art and unfortunately it seems that art is too much for people to want to get into.