Questlove, Hip Hop is Truly Alive
Why public statements unfairly diminishing "Hip Hop" are so damaging
In 2013, New York Magazine published an article titled “1993: The Year That Changed Everything.” In it, rapper Speech from Arrested Development was quoted, saying “Public Enemy revolutionized the subject matter in hip-hop, but then you had A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Brand Nubian, us, telling people that black is proud, that diversity is cool. We’re not all one color, but we can still be one in thought.”
In 2013, NPR heralded 1993’s The Chronic as “An Audio Document Of The L.A. Riots,” calling 1993 “rap's greatest year.”
Earlier, in 2003, VIBE Magazine was already up on it, publishing “1993: The Year Hip-Hop And R&B Conquered The World,” running down a laundry list of iconic artists and groups that, today, are known as iconic by rap fans and the general public alike.
But IN 1993, when all of this incredible music and art was bursting into the mainstream, the general public was being told something quite different.
THE PAPER OF RECORD
I have looked through the archives of The New York Times, known as “the nation’s paper of record,” and tallied up the articles that were being written about rap and Hip Hop culture in 1993. Contrary to what was being written about in hindsight, the public was being told a much different story:
“Rap star and 2 others accused of murder”
“Radio station bans harmful music”
“Rap star and 2 friends indicted in sexual assault”
“Harlem Protest of Rap Lyrics Draws Debate and Steamroller”
There was virtually zero positive representation of the music and/or culture in The New York Times, or presumably other mainstream media, in 1993.
Adding to that, 1993 was the year C. Delores Tucker would wage her infamous “war on rap.”
Hip Hop media, which was in its heyday at the time, was doing its best, profiling that litany of groundbreakingly creative and diverse artists. Yet the rest of the country was being told that rap (and by extension, those associated with it), were nothing more than violent thugs, and that the music and the culture and its participants had no redeeming value to society.
In its first 20 years, rap and Hip Hop culture was seen as a fad. Party music, if anything. Not even worthy of its own category, simply lumped in as part of “R&B” or “disco” in Billboard.
Post-1993 however, in part thanks to this avalanche of biased press and its effect on public perception, the perception that Hip Hop music and culture has had to continuously confront is that it is violent, misogynist and hateful.
THE TRUTH SHOULD-BUT-PROBABLY-WON’T SET US FREE. YET.
In 2015, I co-authored a research study with social psychologist Dr. Joy Sever that aimed to gauge public perception of Hip Hop. Among several interesting takeaways was that 67% of people who DON’T EVEN LISTEN TO RAP, think that it is “negative.”
Re-read that. It’s important. Also keep in mind that “unsure” was an option. Which is what I would say if you asked me what I think about music I’ve never heard.
If you’re a subscriber to this newsletter, you probably already know how unfair this sort of thinking is to the entirety of Hip Hop — even if we just focus on its artistic participants. I would think most would agree that the depth and breadth of what Hip Hop produces as a genre alone is as vast as the human experience, from street ciphers to a Pulitzer Prize, from ratchet to revolutionary. And while “negative” can be subjective, sure, there are aspects of the music that we can all agree aren’t representative of the genius and creativity of the genre as a whole, but that’s the point — that an entire genre exists which should never be whittled down to “negative.”
Now, we did ask about “rap” in particular, but since most people equate Hip Hop and rap, it’s not a far reach to assume many of those respondents also aren’t familiar with Hip Hop culture, and that most would likely feel the same way if asked specifically about Hip Hop in general.
Which, to me, is even worse because it’s on a societal level where Hip Hop’s true “positive” potential shines. As we cover here and on the Hip Hop Can Save America! podcast and livestream show, there are so many area in which Hip Hop is being used to help improve humanity — in schools, in mental health facilities, in physical and occupational therapy, in politics and activism — in ways that are completely unique to Hip Hop. These intersections with nearly every aspect of modern culture, many of them inspiring, have gone global, crossing every possible border — ethnic, cultural, generational, linguistic, religious, ideological...
Hip Hop is everywhere. Hip Hop is expansive. Much of it is extremely positive.
Hip Hop is truly ALIVE.
SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
The problem is that Hip Hop’s largely reputation of being nothing more than a violent, misogynistic, talentless genre continues to precede it, despite the allusions I just made, and the hundreds of examples I could — and often do — provide.
But it’s not hard to see why. With media, if it bleeds, it leads, and that is no different when it comes to The New York Times in 1993, or today on your local news or cable networks. We can (and should) talk about how coverage in all of these arenas have longed skewed against people of color in insidious ways — we can see this currently with the purposeful, racist and xenophobic fear mongering around immigrants or pro-Palestinian protestors for example.
In all of these cases, and throughout history, these harmful stereotypes are born and nurtured based on the suppositions of, often, just a few powerful individuals with big megaphones, and then fueled through repetition and amplification to become an irreversible part of the zeitgeist.
With Hip Hop, it doesn’t help when, generally speaking, the only news deemed worthy of making the rounds in the news cycle are stories about a fallen mogul, or a rap battle between two of the industry’s biggest stars, both of which, they’ll quickly and repeatedly emphasize, are full of disparaging, personal, salacious accusations and commentary.
But this is to be expected. Much good work and good trouble go unreported all the time. The point is, people never get to hear about the “positive” side of Hip Hop.
For instance, at around the same time as the news was all a flutter about the Kendrick / Drake affair, the eighth annual incarnation of a youth-centered Hip Hop education conference was happening at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, an inspiring event showcasing brilliance in Hip Hop-based education practices.
Also around the same time, there were several prominent Hip Hop artists in Albany talking to legislators about the dangerous trend of rap lyrics being included as evidence in trials.
Seemingly no media covered the former, only VIBE (that I could find) covered the latter.
I was intrigued. As I was writing this, I checked some of the major outlets to see what THEY were covering about Hip Hop — now more than two weeks removed from the height of the 2024 Battle of the Rap Titans. Surely there would be SOMETHING happening in all of Hip Hop that would be worthy of covering. Or would this random snapshot in time prove again that mass media is only interested in the “negative” aspects of the music and culture…
FOX NEWS: Entertainment page - I actually couldn’t find any stories about Hip Hop music or culture, but there was a whole SECTION devoted to Diddy. 🙄
CNN: Top of the “entertainment” page - “Questlove was not happy with Drake and Kendrick Lamar’s beef: ‘Nobody won the war’” -- OK, hold that thought for a minute, we’re getting to him.
MSNBC, homepage in the video section: An ~8 minute clip from The Beat with Ari Melber, “Ari Melber breaks down the Kendrick Lamar and Drake rap battle.” Melber, an outspoke Hip Hop fan, often intertwines lyrics on his show, interviews artists, and takes great pains to portray Hip Hop in its best light. That being said, again, the only Hip Hop he generally covers is that which reaches a level of controversy which requires his brand of Melber-splainin’ to his audience. So in that regard, it’s kinda like Macklemore’s pro-Palestine “Hind’s Hall.” It’s cool and all, but there are others who are doing it that aren’t white and famous, and it’d be cool if their voices were just as prominent. But I digress. A decent job by Melber to portray the beef in a positive light but in the end, it’s still just “rap beef” to the I-only-read-the-headline folks, which to most people, as we have covered, means rap=violence.
In fact, that’s the overall knee jerk reaction to rap beef, even among rap fans. “Remember what happened to Tupac and Biggie!!” people have said. Some of those folks genuinely care about the music and the communities it's typically attached to, and are simply offering that as a plea, a warning, to not let these conflicts echo the tragic circumstances of that particular conflict. Fair. Others however, usually less connected to Hip Hop music and culture, use it as low hanging fuel to bolster their position that rap is violent, rappers are violent, rap fans approve violence, and these are the only things rap /Hip Hop can offer.
The (unintentionally ironic for the former group) result of connecting any other rap battle to Biggie/Tupac helps strengthen this misperception, that rap battles inevitably lead to violence because rap and rappers are violent
All of this continuously spills over and effects the people and organizations that are involved in Hip Hop in ways that are NOT any of this.
I mean, it’s not that much different than having to prove yourself to people who have preconceived notions of you based on your race, gender, religion, physical or cognitive disability, or any number of isms.
Which is why it is more than an insignificant, throwaway line when, at the end of a rant about the Kendrick x Drake battle, Questlove states:
“Hip Hop is truly dead.”
OK, BUT… LIKE… IS IT?
The substance of what precedes his proclamation is slightly less troubling, but not entirely. He calls out the content of the battle as “mudslinging” (isn’t every battle?), he laments it as a “takedown by any means necessary – women & children (& actual facts) be damned,” (I mean, ok…), he foreshadows a violent end by saying, “Same audience wanting blood will soon put up ‘rip’ posts like they weren’t part of the problem,” (we’ll get into this), before punctuating his viewpoint with the made-for-clickbait-headlines statement, “Hip Hop is truly dead.” (Sigh.)
There are so many things wrong with this take, but everyone has their own opinions, so y’all can have at it. Feel free to mention Questlove’s voluntary and prominent role in Jay-Z’s “Takeover” during that MCs incredibly high profile battle with fellow rap titan, Nas -- one with quite a big of mudslinging, women and baby (seat) references... Or, bring up the fact that there have been countless battles in rap music that HAVEN’T ended in any form of violence. Or that content is one thing, but to suggest that “this wasn’t about skill…” is absurd. To me anyway.
What the debatable parts did, however, was lead up to a conclusion that I feel is just flat out wrong and terribly damaging. Because here’s how I think the logical line of reasoning plays out to folks:
THIS BATTLE WAS (super)UGLY
WOMEN AND BABIES WERE DISPARAGED!
THERE WILL BE BLOODSHED
HIP HOP FANS ARE LIABLE FOR THIS BLOODSHED
THIS IS WHERE HIP HOP IS TODAY!
THEREFORE, HIP HOP IS TRULY DEAD.
For those that don’t know, this last phrase has some history. Similar to the same criticism every genre of art has had to deal with from folks of subsequent generations, the “Hip Hop is dead” thing goes back to the days it became truly commercially successful — though Nas’ 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead is usually the most cited.
Although that title was meant to have a deeper meaning, Nas himself stated it was a foolish angle, On the album’s 10th anniversary in 2016, Nas was quoted on HipHopDX.com:
“In retrospect, I missed the mark by miles,” [Nas] said. “I didn’t want to pick people apart. It felt like it was for a younger artist to do. I thought the title was enough; to say it’s dead, it was to say, ‘I don’t know where to begin, I don’t know where to start. But at least I’ll name it this and we’ll see where it goes from there.'”
Odd that Questlove, known as a Hip Hop musicologist who is soon releasing a book on the genre, would be so quick to make the same mistake.
(Quick aside. It just now struck me as interesting that his book is to be titled “Hip Hop is History,” which could be interpreted as if to say, “Hip Hop is over.” Like, “long gone.” Interesting. Anyway…)
What’s worse today than when Nas dropped, is that, in an age where news of a demise travels fast, far, and frequent, Questlove is one of the more respected voices within the culture, and even more important, one of the MOST respected voices OUTSIDE the culture, saying that Hip Hop is dead. Truly dead even.
Are The Roots truly dead? Is Black Thought’s artistry truly dead? Are all the things I talked about in the beginning of this piece, truly dead?
HOLD UP. WAIT A MINUTE
And before you respond with, “What he MEANT was…”
Don’t.
None of it matters because he said what he said. When we have to say “what he meant was,” the damage has already been done. Questlove knows there is a difference between rap and commercial rap and Hip Hop music and Hip Hop culture. He knows a lot of people don’t know those distinctions. So he SHOULD know that calling out “Hip Hop” will have similar effect to Trump calling Mexicans “rapists” and “criminals,” just lumping everything together into one non-nuanced pile.
But fine. I’ll entertain some responses I saw.
Questlove couldn’t have meant “the rap music business” or “mainstream Hip Hop” is truly dead. First, despite his high profile, Kendrick isn’t exactly a “mainstream” artist. His songs are not in rotation, he hasn’t released recently, and he’s winning Pulizers. Far from what a mainstream rap star looks like in 2024.
There are quite literally a TONNNNN of examples one could focus on if one wanted to assail the state of the industry — an industry, I’d point out, is on full display at the annual Roots Picnic. So what about “the industry” would he be calling out?
Ok, perhaps what Questlove meant to was to lay indictment against the aspect(s) of the entertainment business that have profited on, and therefore promotes — directly or indirectly — Black on Black conflict. This is certainly a valid concern, but again, rap battles have happened since the beginning of rap, the vast majority without a single violent encounter. If anyone wanted to go after the industry which supports or highlights these things, again, there are so many more egregious examples — the Drill subgenre being the most obvious one. So no, I don’t think this wasn’t that.
Maybe Questlove was just trying to say what Stevie Wonder told TMZ recently, that all of this is a waste of time and a distraction from other important things happening in the world.
Well a) he didn’t say that, and b) I wouldn’t agree anyway.
A person is capable of enjoying a rap battle or participating in the dialog about it, while simultaneously paying attention to other issues and if they feel like it, participating in protests or other action. If they are that easily distracted, that’s on THEM. Not Hip Hop. Not a rap battle.
As Hip Hop artist and activist Hakim Green said, “We have to stop blaming Hip Hop for things people do.”
There are always entertainment distractions, from Barbie to the Super Bowl to the Grammys... But to be fair, entertainment’s role is literally to distract us. Yes, sometimes those artists can also educate, inform and advocate for a cause, but not all of them do. And that’s fine.
As I noted in some comments I made about Macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall,” we don’t need musicians to call attention to issues like we once did. The issues are all over the news and our social media feeds. Experts exist across all sorts of outlets — mainstream, independent and everything in between. It’s up to US to be engaged, not sit back waiting for some artist or celebrity to tell us what we should be focused on or how we should be protesting.
That goes for G.O.A.T.s like Stevie Wonder too.
BUT THE VIOLENCE…
As to one response which suggested that Questlove’s concern was over “real animosity towards Drake and people are willing to do him bodily harm as evidenced by the shooting at his spot.” First, this assumes the shooting was related, but regardless, it’s a valid concern. After all, we know that rhetoric played a big part in the January 6 insurrection. And while this doesn’t compare to a man calling upon 70+ million rabid, ride-or-die fans after four years of gaslighting, race-baiting and fearmongering to take up arms in an uprising, Mrs. Faces did convince me that doxxing someone’s home address does kinda cross a line which could indeed lead to bad actors taking bad actions.
But even IF we assign some blame to Kendrick for ratcheting it up a little too much, we cannot condemn an entire group of people/genre/culture based on the actions of a few. I would even argue that anyone compelled to (allegedly) act on (the perception of) Kendrick’s behalf, is motivated by something way more than fondness for a particular rapper — an issue that needs to be dealt with in another forum altogether.
Lastly, I and many of my educator friends noted that there were a whole lot of topics brought up in these battles that do have educational, cultural and sociological value worth discussing. Issues regarding colorism, immoral behavior… Even what Questlove says are lies could lead to discussions about libel and slander. There was talk of domestic abuse, use of the N-word, colonization…
This is what a lot of discussion that folks I tune in to were engaged in, and often, speaking with young people about. To whittle all that potential fodder for such rich, culturally responsive, educational dialog down to a non-skilled slinging of mud that’s gonna get someone killed is such a disheartening missed opportunity.
OK MANNY, WRAP IT UP ALREADY
Fine, here’s the conclusion to this Mannyfesto.
Hip Hop is a vast social, cultural and artistic movement that has grown way past its ability to entertain. It is capable of helping uplift humanity in many unique, powerful ways. Many of those proven efforts are particularly helpful in improving the lives and livelihoods of Black and brown Americans who have been traditionally underserved, under-funded, under-resourced and under-loved.
In the same way that any ethnic group would not want to be judged by the actions of a small minority, in the same way that followers of any religion would not want to be discounted by the actions of a small number of their clergy, in the same way that politicians that mean well don’t want to be judged unfairly based on the actions of the loudest on the fringes, neither should Hip Hop and its artistic and cultural participants be subjected to a continued assault on its character by those who ignore its core DNA of a movement that is all about peace, love, unity and having fun.
My work with this newsletter and the Hip Hop Can Save America! podcast and livestream aims to lift up the work of Hip Hop-affiliated people and organizations who are actively improving lives, livelihoods and communities THROUGH Hip Hop.
Collectively, we explore and signal boost these efforts that the rap music industrial complex — and much of mainstream media — blatantly ignore. The efforts can help everyone but much of their work, and mine, purposefully centers Black and brown lives, as the creators and nurturers of the movement which has the potential to lift them up from the very systems that have put them in a place where “negativity” is an unfortunate, but understandable byproduct.
So it is these folks who are doing the *actual* work to address, alleviate, and in some cases eliminate the conditions which create the circumstances that inspire the content that sometimes veers into conflict — THROUGH Hip Hop, not to kill it off, but to use it for its power to heal, educate, innovate and inspire.
So when someone as revered as Questlove speaks up and says things like "Hip Hop is truly dead," essentially equating today's Hip Hop with nothing more than inevitable violent outcomes, I view it as a slap in the face of the thousands of culture workers, artists and advocates that are busting their asses to bring their initiatives to life — initiatives that can literally help solve the problems plaguing their communities — the real cause of the issues Questlove and others are rightfully concerned about.
Instead, those folks often have to waste time defending why they are using Hip Hop, since it's so violent and misogynistic.
And, you know, truly dead.
I, and the many people I talk to and work with, do not believe Hip Hop is the cause of negativity, but rather, a solution to reducing racial and economic inequality, and that those efforts will directly reduce the amount of Black and brown inequity, disparity, and yes, violence and death in America — one of the many wars going on that we haven’t become distracted from, one that has been waged in this country, for centuries.
I also believe that those same tenets can be applied to other conflicts here and abroad, including regions that have been in conflict for millennia.
But what happens when people like Questlove and Stevie Wonder express these things to drama-loving social media or soundbite-obsessed media, an overwhelming response is, "Yea! Hip Hop needs to do better!!!!"
I'm saying it already does, and that anybody with a platform or reach of someone like Questlove who doesn't understand that, who doesn’t do anything to spread THAT reality, and who doesn't understand that his statement just perpetuates the idea that, basically, Hip Hop ain't sh*t, does extraordinary damage to all the people that Hip Hop is trying to save.
They talk about the parties they set up in 1973, to have fun in a time when NYC was broke.
DJ Kool Herc and Cindy Campbell, birth of hiphop
From a timeline at Luna Luna in LA
https://youtu.be/Jdb3MTz7xXg?feature=shared