We need to change how we talk about Hip Hop: Xzibit One
I was recently asked to provide opening remarks for a Hip Hop 50 event at Texas State University. The following is, more or less, what I had to say.
The TXST event was subtitled “Where are we going? Where have we been?”
This implies a crossroads, and in thinking about what I wanted to share, the nuance of that chronological crossroads reared its interesting head.
Earlier that week, Xzibit, a California rapper who rose to fame in the mid-1990s, became the latest in a long line of older, some might say “OG” artists, who offered their opinion on “today’s hip hop”
He said things like, and I quote:
I’m sick of hip hop, man. I’m sick of the way it sounds, the way it looks, the way it’s presented. It’s just so cookie-cutter and so predictable. There’s no innovation, there’s no risk-taking, and there’s no experimentation. It’s just the same old formula over and over again.
Now, I know what he means. Many of us do, and will rightfully point out that he was really talking about “mainstream” hip hop music, aka, rap aka rap on the radio, for the most part.
But he didn’t say that. He said “I’m sick of hip hop, man. I’m sick of the way it sounds, the way it looks, the way it’s presented…”
And words -- and perception -- matter.
It matters when someone like Xzibit says it because then it gets regurgitated on websites and memes and social media accounts over and over and over again. And to many, many people, even within or connected to Hip Hop culture, this is something they are already being conditioned to believe. That they, too, are sick of Hip Hop. Because today, to many, many people, even within or connected to Hip Hop culture, Hip Hop really isn’t anything more than the rap which is at the forefront of the pop culture experience.
This false perception makes sense in some ways because music has always been the biggest part of Hip Hop culture. Music is at the core of three of the culture’s defining artistic elements, DJing, MCing, and breakin’ -- and probably was being played during the execution of the fourth -- graffiti writing.
So let’s look at the first part of the event theme -- “Where have we been?”
Well, over the years, the commercialization of the culture has drowned out nearly everything but the music. And so when our generational shift happened, as it always does, so too have older folks’ opinion of the music that now appeals mainly to younger folks.
And the older folks sure got something to say.
OLDER, BUT WISER?
Obviously, as we get older, we have less time to seek and find new music that will satisfy our slightly outdated, but no less important tastes in music. We don’t have the disposable time he had when we were younger, nor do we have the limited exposure that once hand fed us our content. One or two radio stations, Video Music Box or Yo MTV Raps! or later, maybe a few choice rap blogs. All we really get is whiffs of whatever’s current, new music from young artists making songs that we don’t resonate with over beats that don’t satisfy us.
Even those as closely connected to the culture as a successful artist like Xzibit or Pete Rock or Lil Yachty or any number of artists who have taken to social media or the airwaves to criticize ‘today’s’ rap music, usually make the same mistakes. 1) They call it Hip Hop instead of rap (which I understand, but it doesn’t help), 2) They don’t take the opportunity to amplify the work of anyone they feel is up to par (like, ever), and 3) They think their attachment to the culture makes their opinion super informed (it usually isn’t) and 4) They seem to want 20-year-olds to make music that will appeal to their 40+ year old preferences.
Which is… Weird.
Look, I’m sure there are plenty of 20-somethings giving life advice to other 20-somethings. I see them all the time on social media. Burgeoning life coaches. Good for them. Now, given my life experience, I may wholly and vehemently disagree with them. I may be baffled at how terrible that advice is. I may accuse those advice-givers of hurting the very people they are trying to help.
But what I don’t do, is expect that advice shared amongst 20-somethings is for me in the first place.
Even worse, many seem to want to impose some kind of moral authority, some purist policy on whatever might be called “pop music” today. They will call out the content, a lack of “substance,” rapping off beat, rapping over the vocals…
Critics of these criticisms will point out that even in the “Golden Era,” older folks were downplaying this genre and those associated with it, and in many cases, the content, imagery, and messaging were even more destructive that what passes for popular rap today.
Arguing the first without admitting the latter is ahistorical, nostalgic bias.
Not to mention, the “mainstream” rap I assume they’re railing against, only represents a small portion of “today’s rap.” It’s funny, folks will often complain that radio stations only play the “same 10 songs over and over again.” Ok, but Spotify tells me that there were way more than 10 rap songs released in the last year. In fact, a bunch of the top listened-to rap songs on Spotify, aren’t even played on radio. In more fact, many of my favorite songs by younger artists aren’t on the radio either, or on Spotify’s top charts.
So if people like Xzibit aren’t finding good, new music, where are they looking?
Wait.
Are they looking??
NARRATOR: “No. They are not.”
In 2014, a few months after the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, Questlove? posted to his Instagram account, pleading with the music community -- Hip Hop in particular -- to create more protest music. “It doesn’t have to be ‘Fight The Power,’” he said, “but we need new Public Enemys.”
In the comments to his IG post and to many articles posted on other sites about his statement, many people agreed, adding on comments about how Hip Hop used to be about uplifting the community and positivity, but not anymore.
First, rap music has always had a mix of messaging, and to say that there was a time when it was “mostly” positive is again, ahistorical. But sure, there may have been a time when there was more balance on the radio. That’s a piece for another time. (Of course, we can blame things like the Telecommunications Act of 1994 and untethered corporate control of the artform for that. Today’s rappers are merely byproducts of an aggressively capitalistic economy that thrives on amplifying violence and the criminal element for profit. But I digress.).
The real problem with Questlove?’s sentiment, was that in those few months, there had been at least 7 protest songs about Michael Brown’s killing released by well known artists -- including modern artists like J.Cole but also like De La Soul featuring Chuck D -- of the “old” Public Enemy.
So this goes back to Xzibit. By criticizing Hip Hop, the genre, with such a harsh, wide brush, I would want to assume that he and those who agree with his sentiment, are looking-but-not-finding anything they like from today’s “Hip Hop” (again, meaning mainstream rap music but not saying it so it confuses most people).
I have to say this is hard to believe. In fact, I absolutely will not accept the idea that anyone who likes a certain style of rap can’t open up Spotify and find someone doing that kind of rap. Just like Questlove? seemingly didn’t check to see if anyone was actually releasing any new protest music, I would have to assume that Xzibit really doesn’t look for new music very hard. He might hear some, come across some through younger folk in his circle, but actively seeking?
Nah.
Manny, how can you assume this? You don’t know him. Don’t be disrespecting the OGs, etc. etc.
Well, I mean, because it’s not that hard. If someone wants to find newer artists that they might like, just find one. It only takes one. Find them on Spotify, click “Go To Artist Radio,” and you will be delivered an algorithmically designed playlist of songs from that artist and others like them. Click “favorite” on a few joints that have a vibe that you mess with, and magically, your algorithms will start to learn your tastes. This is how I discovered a bunch of artists, like EARTHGANG and Lucky Daye and Ari Lennox and JID -- most of which are not on the radio, or even on the top of Spotify charts.
Rod Wave I heard about from my daughter.
Most would have to agree that these are at the very least pretty good artists making mostly non-formulaic music -- some might say innovative. And I’m not saying that everyone will just automatically fall in love with any one of these particular artists -- someone else’s algorithm journey may have more Griselda or Roc Marciano -- but somewhere down that algorithm has to be some artist that will tickle my eardrums.
So if I can do that, why can’t Xzibit. Out of all the tens of thousands of artists with rap songs on Spotify, NOTHING?
Matter of fact, here’s what I just did while writing this. I went to Spotify. I never listened to this particular group on Spotify, because I was exposed to them by video on Facebook or IG. I looked up Coast Contra. If you know these cats, they have a heavy 90s vibe, mad flow, dope lyrics and presence, and two are sons of West Coast OG legend, Ras Kass. I don’t know Xzibit, but I can pretty much assure you that he would enjoy these guys, and maybe already does.
I found them on Spotify. I immediately clicked “Go To Artist Radio” and looked ahead. I saw several artists that I’ve heard of that are relatively modern, artists like Chance The Rapper, Cordae along with Anderson.Paak, Freddie Gibbs, Marlon Craft and Tobe Nwigwe. Some I don’t know, artists like Piff Marti, Ill Conscious, Armani White…
All I’d need now was one joint from one of those artists that I vibed with, to hit “favorite” on or click “Go to Song Radio” and discover some new stuff along the same lines. Doing this enough and my algorithm will know to deliver me new stuff that I’d likely like, without me providing any direction.
This all took me 2 minutes.
So when I see anyone -- OG rapper or rando internet person -- call out the ENTIRE genre (or, as they often unimaginatively do, the ENTIRE genre… except for Kendrick and J. Cole), I think it’s safe to assume that they just aren’t really taking the time to see what “today’s Hip Hop” REALLY has to offer.
As Sean Baptiste said so succinctly in a response to a post about this on my Facebook page;
The one thing I have learned in my time on this planet is that when people say anything along the lines of ‘new {INSERT ARTISTIC FORM OR GENRE} is garbage, it was better back in my day’ they are outing themself as an old who has lost all of their intellectual curiosity.
Yes! That’s it! I would have hoped -- but also kinda expected -- that Xzibit would be able to spare at least two minutes to the genre that he so willingly profited off to find some great new music so that when he inevitably gets asked about Hip Hop, he might have said something like, “Except for most of the ‘mainstream’ stuff, I’m loving the hip hop I found, man. I love the way it sounds, the way it looks, the way it’s presented. Definitely not cookie-cutter or predictable,” because two minutes on Spotify would have delivered a variety of artists that sound almost nothing like what’s on the radio, and don’t sound like each other at all.
Two minutes.
IT”S ABOUT THE MUSIC BUT IT ALSO ISN’T
I would also ask that Xzibit, and anyone else who makes these blanket statements would realize that by centering music in every discussion about Hip Hop -- and usually disparaging our young people at the same time -- we not only commit the same kind of violent damage to our young people that folks outside of their culture have been doing for centuries, but we diminish the rest of a massive and wide-ranging culture, one that has so much more to offer that even its much heralded collection of artforms.
Because when I look at “Hip Hop,” I’m looking at where we’re going. In fact, I’m loving Hip Hop, man. I love the way it sounds, the way it looks, the way it’s presented. Definitely not cookie-cutter or predictable. There’s so much innovation, so much risk-taking, so much experimentation…
Because to me and millions of others, Hip Hop is what folks would be seeing at that Texas State event. A display of all elements from a collection of art forms, a culture, a lifestyle, an ethos. It’s also the lens through which some people see the world -- not as a solid, unmoldable object spinning mindlessly around a flaming star over which we have no control, but an ever-growing collection of elements, compounds, materials, landscapes, lifeforms, traditions, all ripe for mixing and blending, smacking and flipping, molding into something newer and better, stronger or faster, more fair and just. Fresher. More dope. More lit. More fire.
It’s that remixing nature that sits at the heart of that event, as well as my work documenting the many individuals and organizations doing work that authentically connects Hip Hop to society in ways that can uplift that society. At this event for example, there was an intersection of fields with Hip Hop that ten years ago would have been laughed out of any educational institution -- intersections with physical therapy and rehabilitation, therapeutic beat making, criminal and social justice, technology…
And as monumental as that event would be, we find Hip Hop brilliantly crisscrossing with other previously inconceivable areas everywhere, including education, the fine arts, architecture, journalism, spirituality, appearing in conferences at other academic institutions, in archives, in museums and in libraries, in leadership training, in nonprofits and political offices…
And our young people. Those in attendance… They do it so well. They do it without even trying. Without even knowing it’s a thing. We often refer to young people as digital natives, but many of them are Hip Hop natives too, with that unparalleled ingenuity, that genre-bending, culture blending, remix instinct bubbling in their DNA. It’s why those of us who do this work are so excited for the innovations they’ll imagine and create, and fight so hard to protect the idea that Hip Hop is a force for innovation and ingenuity, because we know what that DNA and that Hip Hop influence is capable of.
X said “I’m sick of Hip Hop man. There’s no innovation, there’s no risk-taking, and there’s no experimentation. It’s just the same old formula over and over again.”
I don’t think we’re talking about the same “Hip Hop.”
Though, I would argue that, even if we were, this has never been the case, for the music or any part of the overarching culture. I would simply suggest that times change. That taste in music is subjective, and that even if there are issues with how that mainstream musical landscape has evolved -- and there are issues, I’m not denying that -- we can’t be surprised when the thing that by its very nature can never stay in a box, didn’t stay in the box you wanted it to stay in.
But for those who might be deluded into thinking that what remains is nothing more than scattered, decrepit relics, crippled, limping offspring with barely enough energy to display lingering flashes of nostalgia as it stumbles through its 50th anniversary, destined to collapse under the weight of its own failed potential…
I will stake my reputation that 2 minutes on Spotify, one day at Texas State or a couple listens to the “Hip-Hop Can Save America!” podcast will take you out of the space where you’ve been, and show you where we’re going.
Thanks y’all. More coming soon including more dope Hip Hop conferences and events and news that isn’t about dumb issh. I just had to get this off my chest first.
Support this work if you can. Peace and love.
-M
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Manny Faces
www.mannyfaces.com