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Most rap artists heralded as "mature" are simply miming growth.
There are problems with this BBC piece. For one, it approaches hip-hop as if it's an artifact and not a living and breathing entity.
It does nothing to place Conzo's story in a modern-day context. But more than that, the piece isn't as much about hip-hop growing up as growing old. Hip-hop is deep in its third decade of existence. It spans generations. But to suggest that it's grown up in this time is to assume a maturing that hasn't exactly happened.
Sure, a small handful of artists have managed to mature creatively, (Scarface immediately leaps to mind) but most rap artists who are heralded as "mature" are simply miming growth. "Grown man" rappers like Jay-Z or Common are only mature in the absence of immaturity. They are acclaimed for what they don't rap about—namely drugs and violence (the new "off that" mentality only reinforces the culture's widening generational rift).
They still make superficial music; they've just swapped out street signifiers for more "respectable" but equally vapid pursuits—business, high fashion, etc.
Jay-Z brags endlessly about texts from President Barack Obama, but he never discusses the content of said messages, let alone seriously consider a health care plan. Jay is Tom Hanks in Big, flopping around awkwardly in a new suit. And the grand irony is that these gestures are mostly wasted. Hip-hop is and forever will be youth music, regardless of how many aging rappers do or do not end up on Oprah's couch. The only people who expect maturity from it are outsiders, those who were never involved in the first place, or those who have grown so far from hip-hop that they no longer need it.
And yes, hip-hop is still a culture, but as soon as it expanded beyond the Bronx it ceased to be a monolithic. Every major American city had their own take on the Sugar Hill/Kool Herc formulas. As these local scenes have continued to mutate, many of them have grown unrecognizable to even the most ardent of true school hip-hop heads.
Gucci Mane might seem like gibberish (or even destructive) to a fortysomething KRS-One devotee from the South Bronx, but Mane means as much to many 17-year-old ATLiens as KRS did to New Yorkers twenty years ago. It all comes from the same place: poor kids partying. Hip-hop thrives as a response to poverty. In recent years so much money has come into New York City that it doesn't necessarily need a hip-hop scene. But New Orleans does; Oakland does; Detroit does. It's a shame that the BBC is devoting their efforts to retelling the well-canonized tale of hip-hop in the Bronx instead of bringing light to these still bubbling hip-hop communities throughout the country and the world. Not all scenes are fortunate enough to have a Joe Conzo documenting from the inside.
Andrew Nosnitsky runs a dynamite blog . He also contributes to NPR and the Washington Post.
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I thought hip-hop was dead! Maybe I am wrong...It must just be on life support...
But I'm sure that doesn't change a thing in many of their minds. Proof be damned, many of us operate on an "if I believe it, it must be true" paradigm.
Failing to demand a solidly defensible position from one's detractors keeps the haters in business. And damn if business isn't booming!
Badda,
There won't be any defintions. These are cats on the edges of the CULTURE, regardless of their level of fan status. This is what I've been saying for years. The cats in the culture, making the music or the art or just living it on GP know that their growth is the CULTURE'S growth and vice versa. Those that were and are just fans of the music, see the direction that its been LED in by various interests outside of the CULTURE, and decide that that direction is what we are about and have chosen for ourselves (which is true to some degree) and abandon the CULTURE, calling it immature, while never having really placed their own stake in it to try to help steer it from a destructive path.
yeah its a run-on sentence, so what?!
Still not a single definition of "maturity" from the naysayers. Not one.
Talk about an empty assertion.
These are both talented artist, lyricist who have the ability to construct elaborate, coherent, rythmic, songs at the drop of a dime without writing them down. Music is an art form and art needs space not rules and regulations. This article is yet another attempt to force artist to become activist for an agenda. There is a definite evolution in the lyrics and the skills of these artist and their music reflects their journeys. Its not their responsibility to to mirror somebody elses idea of what maturity looks like or sounds like.
Rapping about poverty and social injustice and despair does not equal maturity, its just what the rapper chooses to rap about. If all rappers decided to go that route, hip hop would die. The reason why hip hop is so popular is because it is HONEST, whether recounting someones life story or broadcasting a persons true desires and fantasies.
COME ON WE ARE TALKING ABOUT THE MUSIC INDUSTRY! IN REGARDS TO JAY-Z, HE IS JUST A LOW LIFE WITH A LOT OF CASH! COMMON IS SIMPLY THE JESSE JACKSON OF RAP! HE TALKS LOUD ABOUT REVOLUTION AND THE WHITE MAN HOLDING BLACK PEOPLE DOWN, BUT HE DOESN'T MEAN IT ! THEY ARE SIMPLE IMMATURE NEGROES WHO WILL DO OR SAY ANY THING TO MAKE SOME MONEY! WE SHOULD NOT BE TALKING ABOUT THERE MATURITY, CAUSE THEY DON'T HAVE ANY! WE NEED TO GATHER THE YOUTH AND TALK ABOUT THEIR INTIGERITY.
Common's music as always seems mature to me. However, Jay-Z's was the one who was always artificial. And, judging from this statement you made...
"The only people who expect maturity from it are outsiders, those who were never involved in the first place, or those who have grown so far from hip-hop that they no longer need it."
I guess I no longer "need" it. I never really "needed" it in the 1st place but, rather grew up w/ it. Sadly, I seemed to have grown but, the genre has not.
There are so many...too many paradigms that are upheld and protected that are toxic. And those paradigms refuse to allow any and everyone to vocalize their critical thoughts. It's quite paralyzing for everyone: the critic and the subject. And think of people like me who are held hostage to being lumped in. I am considered a traitor for not defending at all costs what is absolutely obvious. (Well what is absolutely obvious to us is only absolute because we evolved to want to me more than the status quo superficiality through our lenses.)
Sometimes I think that only White People can liberate us when we are holding ourselves hostage to dated ideologies and rationales. I have tried over and over in my Black skin to bring up so many ideas and issues that are instantly, always disregarded. I find that there is an equation that works when Whites criticize. Legitimacy is offered to the same inferred issues I brought up but are respectfully taken into consideration when criticism comes from a White Person. I just get dismissed as an out-of-touch no-it-all.
Say what you have to say. It seems like the editorial staff is trying to accept their internal challenges to at least allow a piece like this to run without apologizing beforehand to remediate anticipated and fail-proof bruised feelings that were bound to surface.
I welcome those who are not afraid to offer critical insight that might break down a taboo barrier in the Black Community. Our people refuse to acknowledge we are not as evolved or as smart as we protest to be in defense of ourselves all the time. I want to take us there. I am suffocating.
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