Hip-Hop4Babies.com

I have no deep philosophical insights to add to this, but I'll admit that I did envision some of the more cantankerous saints that I have pastored over the years. Maybe they too need some classic hip-hop hits to calm them down and cheer them up. I may try playing this song at testy board meetings. I think it is doubly funny that the actual song in the feature is Biggie's Hypnotize. This is classic. Enjoy!

Hip-Hop: Mainstream Mainstay

Even though many may not like to admit it, the contributions
of hip-hop to wider society are vast and varied.

There are those who for some reason still think that "that hippity-hop noise" is just an annoying appendage and public disturbance to civilized society. However, after last night I am convinced that they are the ones who have their heads in the sand; ignoring (or possibly even denying) the contributions that hip-hop have made to wider popular american culture.

I was enjoying the laziness afforded by a day filled with your typical Christmas-day festivities. I'm not sure what I was watching. Might have been Lebron and the Heat beating up on the Kevin Durant and the Thunder or it might have been Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark. Either way, the TV was watching me closer than I was watching it (if you know what I mean).

I was half asleep, but I perked right up and smiled a "there it goes again" type smile when I saw some random movie trailer for some random movie that couldn't have been any farther from hip-hop or black urban culture, but the background music to the trailer was (if I remember correctly) Rick Ross' "Everyday I'm Hustlin." I wish I had been recording it, or at least that I could remember what the movie was. But it was just so funny to me because the movie and the song didn't match at all. Then, the very next commercial was almost the same thing. It was for some random product that was in no-way related to hip-hop fully fitted with a rap beat. Wow!

I would assume that every true hip-hopper has had that experience before. You just smile and think to yourself, "Yeah, we outchea." The fact is hip-hop has had a long and fruitful relationship with numerous corporations and media outlets for marketing and advertising purposes. From Dolce & Gabanna to Doublemint gum, Nike to Nikon, Hennessey to Hewlett-Packard, there seems to be no limit to reach that hip-hop has in mainstream american culture. Here's a few of the all-time favorites.

Here's an article that recounts 50 of the most memorable commercials featuring rap music and rap artists.

On another occasion I'll try to delve deeper into the intersection of hip-hop and capitalism, but that's another venture. Here's the point behind this post. Rap music and hip-hop in general is as american as baseball and apple pie. Get used to it. Listen to it, and try to hear the voice of the streets.

The Voice of The Streets

In June of 2012 rapper Ice-T directed and produced
this documentary that featured numerous rap legends. 

The credits are rolling and I'm sittin here bobbin my head to Rakim's classic "Microphone Fiend." Of all the songs that could lace the credits of a documentary about rap music, this one is perfect. The beat has that smooth guitar riff and the bass line is bangin at the same time, but what's most recognizable is Rakim's rhythmic and melodic, yet powerful and bodacious flow. The beat is a classic, but his voice is iconic. The film is Ice-T's recent Something from Nothing: The Art of Rap.

As I watched and listened to the film, I couldn't help but be re-captivated by these guys that I once heralded as my heroes. I listened to the beats that I grew up hearing and recited the lyrics I was raised up repeating. I watched them talk of their favorite rap acts and rap lines and recite freestyles and old songs.  They talked about everything surrounding hip hop culture, but mainly the...Art of Rap...rhyming, writing lyrics, structuring songs, rhyme schemes, subject matter, artistic influences, and everything else that has to do with the skill that it takes to pick up a pen and a pad write some words down and then stand in front of mic and try to impress the crowd.  It's nothing I never heard before...not for real, but some of the details reminded me how gifted rappers actually are.

These guys are ghetto poets. Homegrown in the grimiest conditions, forged in the fires of life's harshest cruelties, and then having their artistic skin thickened and fortified by the fiercest competitors; all fighting for the same stage with limited limelight. Don't get it twisted, rappers are artists. Some of them so brilliant, you and I simpletons have a hard time understanding them. And most people are just too stuck up to believe that despite the fact their clothes are baggy and they talk with a slang that they have something meaningful and powerful to say.

It's sad and significant, but from Primo to Jay-Z, they all seem to agree the key to hip hop is understanding the language. And if you don't understand the language you're gonna be frustrated and lost. It's kinda like standing in the chinese restaurant and swearing that they're talking about you. Most people don't like it, simply because they don't understand what the emcee is saying. Sad but true. You're lost. Your loss. Hip-hoppers gain, because what hip-hoppers hear is...a voice.

And that's the theme that kept jumping out at me throughout the film. Rappers work hard to develop their voice. What separates them from the cacophony of competitive noise around them? What do they bring that is fresh and authentic? What do they do that no one else has done? What do they have to say that has not already been said? Is anybody listening? Is this thing on?

That's where rap gets real because before "The Message," "White Lines," "Fight the Power," "Straight Outta Compton," and so many others, no one was listening to us. They tried to exploit us and confine us to the cages of concrete housing projects and silence us with the sanctions of institutional oppressive systems. But rap music started rebelliously blasting on the airwaves, and before long the world could see how much beauty was being locked away in those concrete cages. The world could feel the pathos of the beat. Then the world began to hear the powerful poetry and the ethos of the urban streets and ghettos.

That's why I love rappers. They represent some of the best of what Cornel West (in his book Democracy Matters) calls the tragiocomic--the ability to take something terrible and make something beautiful with it. They took the harsh reality and depravity of the ghetto and made music with it. They made Something from Nothing and that something beautiful is (at least in part) The Art of Rap.

Beefin'

I was in the grocery store the other day and saw this magazine cover. I'll be honest and say that I'm not as in-tune to the hip-hop gravevine, rumor mill, news feed as I have been in times past. Nevertheless, I at least try to keep my ear to the street. With that said, I have no idea who 50-Cent's got beef with now, but my first thought was that beef keeps hip-hop movin.

It's a bit of a sobering thought, but it seems to be true. The grimy, harsh, and even violent battles between rappers are in part why we keep watching and listening. A rapper's career can be bolstered or broken by a rap battle. And some of the most memorable moments have been birthed by a broiling beef.  Ask anybody who loves rap music what their favorite rap battle or beef was, and your sure to be launched into an hour-long conversation about the best of hip-hop.

The sad reality is that sometimes a friendly little rap battle turns into a violent, and even deadly exchange. People get mad when you're stylin on 'em. But, it's because it's not just the rap that's involded. There's often much more on the line. It's more than rap; it's respect. And sometimes in the concrete jungle and the wild wild west of the urban centers and ghetto neighborhoods you have to kill or be killed.  It's about survival; and respect is everything when you're tryin to survive. Beef is one of the hallmarks of hip-hop because it flows from this incessant struggle for survival amongst oppressed and impoverished people.

Beef and battles demand authenticity. And that's probably the most valuable aspect of this whole thing. Hip-hop demands authenticity (or at least it used to...more on that another later). There's a long list of rappers that have had to exit stage left because they were "exposed." And a good, solid beef will do that to a rapper. It gets kinda nasty sometimes--the stuff that is brought out in a beef. Rappers rhyme about the secret details of the opponent's life in an effort to expose their weaknesses and ruin their reputation. You can't be fakin', frontin', and foolin' your fans in the midst of a beef. The truth always comes out. We need more of this.

If the church were as committed to authenticity as hip-hop is, our faith communities would be so much stronger. But often times we harbor resentment, hate, and malice towards church members, co-workers, even family and friends. Rappers put it all out on the table and on TV.  They don't whisper; they grab a mic and rhyme it out in bass lanes laced with lethal lyrics. It's kind of ironic because the Bible speaks directly to authenticity and confrontation (Matt. 18:15), but in nearly ten years of pastoral experience, it's rare that I see this principle employed. Hip-hop pursues the preservation of a healthy community through beef. And while there's a lot wrong with using your words to make somebody look small, there's a lot right with telling the truth and talking things out; even if it is over a beat.