the goonaversity

Hip hop in my opinion is more than music. Hip hop is a movement. And with any movement there are going to be people who join to help others, there are going to be some who do it to help themselves ($) or because its the latest fad. Those who do it for the love are the ones who do it to help others who share the same passion. Over the years I have learned quite a bit from hip hop. Whenever I listen to a hip hop track (beat)I learn something new. I learn what other genres of music were incorporated in this hip hop "beat" and from there I gather appreciation for musicianship, flautist, drummers, pianist. These musicians allow me to broaden my horizons and expose me to a culture or genre that I never would have explored. When I listen to lyrics I understand that the people I listen to teach me something; Whether its Snoop (teaching tha gangsta wayz of Life), Cassidy or Jigga (teaching the hustle), 2 Pac (teaching the struggle of a people), Biggie (teaching the beauty of a word when its flipped a certain way). Rakim or Cannibus (teaching you the confidence in your flow will show people that Presentation is everything. Even soulja Boy, teaching you how to Crank Dat. lol. In closing, I believe the reason we are experiencing this "recession" in Hip Hop is because we are lacking teachers and leaders. In the words of Katt Williams: "There is a war between Punks and Soldiers and Punks are getting stronger everyday".

1 Love.

-INNO

Let me also link this blog thread over to Inno's pages as well . After reading Inno's comments I have to admit that I have started to vacillate myself on my earlier opinion that I thought Hip-Hop should move more towards mainstream in order to make it more accessible and relevant to a broader audience. Maybe Inno has a better point that such a move may adulterate Hip-Hop's artistic purity to stand out in its own right. This is a tough call.

But isn't hip hop the mainstream? Considering the pure percentages of people interested in diverse music styles, hip hop definitely is. Though this might also be a problem, if record companies create artificial rappers like certain extremely successful (commercially more successful than anyone else!) types in Germany who address the worst of the delusions of the mainstream, like uncool ideas that gays must be beaten up or jews were some kind of a natural enemy (didn't we have that before in Germany?). Luckily it's different in the States, there it seems to be more about the beat and the rap. Apart of that I think that there are several mainstreams in each country ;-)