This article is right to point out that most rappers arenāt revolutionaries (duh) but this author completely mangles the historical landscape of hip hop, like most people who donāt 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. Itās just a myth put forth in order to help give Hip Hip ālegitimacyā among its detractors who scapegoat it for American social ills, even though it never needed that ālegitimacyā nor approval from outsiders.
Rappers were fantasizing about chasing wealth to escape poverty in the 80ās too. Too Short, Big Daddy Kane,, even Eric B. and Rakim and thereās more I havenāt 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 āhood rich,ā 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 doesnāt 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 90ās southern hip hop which detailed life in drug-afflicted neighborhoods and the rise of whatās known as āthe trapā (see, Outkast, Goddie Mob, and T.I. to name a few).
But anyway yeah like rappers arenāt revolutionaries but I really wish people would dial back their desire for every aspect of Black American culture to have an accessible political utility. Itās 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 canāt just do something banal without someone expecting a clear gain from our labor. If Black Americans have a cultural production, theyāre slighted when it doesnāt measure up to eurocentric appeals to āhigh cultureā and when it doesnāt completely embody the nostalgia people have for the Civil Rights Movement. No other group of peopleās cultural productions are critiqued in this way to this extent, and itās honestly tired. š Hip hop doesnāt need to āgo backā 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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