This article is right to point out that most rappers aren’t revolutionaries (duh) but this author completely mangles the historical landscape of hip hop, like most people who don’t extensively listen to hip hop do. You can tell from the first sentence lol. The hip hop that only ever talked about leftist-friendly politics never existed. It’s just a myth put forth in order to help give Hip Hip “legitimacy” among its detractors who scapegoat it for American social ills, even though it never needed that “legitimacy” nor approval from outsiders.
Rappers were fantasizing about chasing wealth to escape poverty in the 80’s too. Too Short, Big Daddy Kane,, even Eric B. and Rakim and there’s more I haven’t named. Hip hop reflects the social conditions of the people who make it, and it was always more complex than the people who fixate on one lyrical theme (in this case, politics) over another make it seem. There was (and still is) the phenomenon of being “hood rich,” basically being flashy and having nice things among your neighbors who are downtrodden because it meant you could derive some modicum of enjoyment in spite of being poor. The rise of the black middle class meant the rise of hip hop which spoke about wealth, and that gained traction among mainstream music outlets and record labels who have a demand for the production of that kind of rap. The author doesn’t even point out that hip hop today is still far more complex than what is regulated through mainstream outlets. And this rhetoric always seem to overlook rappers who both talk about getting money *and* social issues affecting the communities they grew up in, like Flocka, Chief Keef, and a lot of early 90’s southern hip hop which detailed life in drug-afflicted neighborhoods and the rise of what’s known as “the trap” (see, Outkast, Goddie Mob, and T.I. to name a few).
But anyway yeah like rappers aren’t revolutionaries but I really wish people would dial back their desire for every aspect of Black American culture to have an accessible political utility. It’s as if people are always looking for us to jumpstart the revolution that will save everybody, in all the things we do, all the time. To the point that we can’t just do something banal without someone expecting a clear gain from our labor. If Black Americans have a cultural production, they’re slighted when it doesn’t measure up to eurocentric appeals to “high culture” and when it doesn’t completely embody the nostalgia people have for the Civil Rights Movement. No other group of people’s cultural productions are critiqued in this way to this extent, and it’s honestly tired. 😂 Hip hop doesn’t need to “go back” to anything. All it needs to do is continue to reflect the developing and variable social conditions and artistic inclinations of the people who make it, which is its unifying quality across history.
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