The Ubiquity of Hip Hop
Hip hop was never meant to be adopted by the masses.
Originating from the Bronx borough of New York in the 70s, hip hop rose to prominence within ghettos – largely inhabited by African Americans. Musical artists like DJ Kool Herc would incorporate percussive breaks in existing soul and funk music, eventually giving way to the earliest hip hop beats. Hip hop would inevitably evolve over the course of the next few years, and artists like Grandmaster Flash and The Sugarhill Gang would gain popularity within their inner-city communities. By the early 80s, hip hop had begun to spread throughout music scenes outside of New York City and in major cities like Los Angeles, San Antonio, New Orleans, and Philadelphia. The 80s marked key years in diversifying the sounds within hip hop. Different regions would put their own spin on things, and New York, in particular, became the hotbed for musical experimentation. Run D.M.C. and LL Cool J ushered in a new age of hip hop during these years, creating music that is more reminiscent of today’s hits. These early artists were also the first to begin to go mainstream in the United States, meaning that the genre of hip hop would no longer be something exclusive to the African American communities of the inner city.
A Sedgwick Ave block party in the 1970s
In the late 80s and early 90s, hip hop entered what many call its “golden age”. Public Enemy, Eric B. and Rakim, A Tribe Called Quest, and Big Daddy Kane all rose to popularity, as did the incorporation of social lyricism. This type of lyricism, which used hip hop as a medium to express emotions about social issues in an African American context, would eventually give way to a subgenre called “gangsta rap”. As gang-related activity was incredibly prevalent in the inner city during these years, and intertwined to African American struggle, many popular hip-hop artists made songs about gang violence and lifestyles. Many of today’s most well-known rap albums were made in this genre and era, like Nas’s Illmatic and Dr. Dre’s The Chronic. It is also during these years that hip hop became a real part of mainstream culture. But by the early 2000s, “gangsta rap” had begun to fade out of hip hop, instead giving way to music more suited for radio and relatable to the audience at large, rather than to just an inner-city audience.
This final shift, in the 2000s, is not an evolution, but rather the death, of hip hop. Consider the origins of hip hop. As abridged as the history I provided is, each stage of the genre’s evolution stayed true to the idea of providing a voice for the inner city and allowing the unheard African American populations to be heard. Many, if not most, of today’s “hip hop” songs do no such thing. There are artists, like Kendrick Lamar and Mos Def, who do stay true to hip hop’s core value, but the Roots drummer, Questlove, put it quite nicely in a 2014 interview, when he said that hip hop has “failed black America” in recent years. He questioned the notion that hip hop dominating America was a good thing, arguing that the genre had become ubiquitous to the point of losing its identity of black struggle. It is everywhere now, and therefore invisible.
The Roots’ drummer, Ahmir Khalib Thomson, better known as Questlove
In a similar vein, many of those communities that birthed hip hop’s greatest and most significant artists are slowly disappearing as well. The New York City boroughs of the Bronx, Brooklyn, and Queens are all becoming gentrified. While many housing projects still stand as a result of local government contracts, the areas around them have become bought out and renovated by new residents who know nothing of the land’s cultural significance. Take the Queensbridge Housing Projects, for example. Part of Long Island City, an area that became famous in the 2010s for rapid modernization and gentrification, Queensbridge is the largest public housing project in the Western Hemisphere. It is also the childhood home of such hip hop icons as Nas and duo Mobb Deep. The area played a huge role in their music, which was characterized by vibrant storytelling of the cycle of violence and crime that was forced upon local African American youths. And while I don’t support this culture, it is still a key part of the New York City identity and the African American identity at large.
But eventually, when the residents within the projects themselves are forced out and the apartment buildings are fashioned into high rises for the upper class, the history and culture of what was before will be gone. It will likely drive down crime and make the area safer (which is a good thing), but I wish the stories of the old would still remain.
This is, in a sense, an apt metaphor for true hip hop’s place in the musical world. Voices of the inner city, swallowed up by those who simply look to please the crowd.
Originally published in December 2019