Grillless

How many years has Hip Hop been around now? …and media is still talkin’ “Hip Hop Situation”????? As in, “What’s the situation with hip hop…”, the naysayers keep naysayin’.

How many more times do we need to wait back it up, easy back it up?

Apparently a few more.

Afrika Bambaataa is famously quoted for saying, “Hip-Hop is Universal”.

If Hip Hop is universal, and it is, then here is your situation right here, Hip Hop is alive and well and everybody’s still dancing.

Here’s the PROOF:

YouTube Link To The Heart

Peace.

Grillless

Revisionist hip hop history is a hot topic lately, revisionists are coming out of the woodwork like crazy, and it’s not just ill-informed journalists riding the media mogul wave of big cash bags that are propogating the myths of hip hop, which I recently found out for myself.

Everybody has an opinion about hip hop, some love it, others hate it, some grew up on it.

I’m not sure if I’m falling into the reactionary trap, but if I am, I’ll just chalk it up to another blog post and leave it at that. I know that those from the last category are very passionate about the subject of hip hop, and there’s no crime in trying to open a younger audience’s ears and eyes on what the love of hip hop is all about.

Where we tend to go astray is in using our opinion to define the culture, this can turn into a dangerous excercise. There’s a difference in telling your audience what your personal preferences are, and using that as gospel, than giving the facts of how a generation moved through the music and culture. If we are doing the latter, we are empowered because we are empowering others with information. If we are doing the former, than we are on that slippery slope with the devil laughing all the way to the bank on a nation divided.

We are free to discuss and editorialize, but make sure that you tell your audience what you’re doing by using your words, we must refrain from editorializing opinion as fact.

I have made it known on this blog that Vanilla Ice (heralded by today’s revisionsists), was rejected by true hip hopers. I didn’t use my opinion, I used the voice of a generation, and I paraphrase here, “Rap is not pop, if you call it that then stop” - Check The Rhyme, A Tribe Called Quest.

So just what is Kangol, a very well respected and talented man of the culture, one of the members of UTFO, about on his new piece in AllHipHop.com?

“Soldier Boy and Ice T is an example of Hip-Hop communication gone wrong” - Kangol, 2008

I’ll leave Soldier Boy alone for this blog post, since we’re talking about the history of the culture. I do want to hear what he has to say about Ice T, in regards to this however.

So before I get caught in the reactionary trap, let me just say that we need someone like Kangol out there, this man is credible, and that my message to Kangol is, the children of hop hop are listening, use your voice wisely.

To the readers from the latest generation, take the advice from a previous generation, don’t believe everything you hear, ask questions, and be informed.

Don’t trust me. Trust you.

Here’s the link to Kangol, support him! This man is part of the birth of hip hop. Yo Kangol!: INDUSTRY ADVISOR

Years ago, I had my list of all time rap records. At the time it was a list of albums, and I’m sure Tribe was on there, BDP, etc. but over the years I have forgotten who exactly was on my list. This is because I had one of those moments, one of those moments where you realize your philosophy was wick-wick-wack, definitely an eye opening experience if you will.

Back then I was working at a well known place inside a well known stadium (which recently had a name change). The names don’t matter, but what matters is that I had come in that day, excited to tell my co-worker my epiphany, for I had just made my list of the best of the best, and I felt it was comprised of strong selections, Rap Music’s “Must Haves”.

My friend is one of those types, a fellow person who digs the music, you know the ones, you meet them everywhere, and you have that feeling, that shared experience of the love for the music, you don’t have to speak it.

So, after many discussions about hip hop, I related my list to him, and he smiled and nodded at each and every one that I spoke of that day. What he said afterward has affected me to this day, and I live by these words.

Today I can’t remember exactly, word for word, what was said. I live it now, it is a part of me. Essentially, the words were this: You cannot name the “Best of the Best” because the “Best of the Best” is still to come. In other words, don’t make your top 10 list just yet, because the history of the music is still being written.

Now, this was well before the “Hip Hop Is Dead” ideology that’s going around today; we’re talking early nineties here. However, the philosophy of a living, breathing culture still exists, you just have to find it, and find it within yourself.

Now that is something you can share.