Hip-Hop where have you gone?

Hip-Hop is more than just someone speaking over a beat or just a loud noise when a car goes by. Hip-Hop is a hope that better days are coming, and if I speak my mind someone might just listen. For over a decade, I have been a fan of this thing we call Hip-Hop or as the main stream media calls it “Rap Music.” What they fail to understand is that, Hip-Hop is bigger than a rapper or bigger than one artist, Hip-Hope is a revolution with words.

As a child of the eighties I was born into Hip-Hop as it became a main stearm genre. My love with it comes from an understanding that I could speak my mind and people would listen. It was the beat, it was the radio you played the music through, it was the tape that wore out at that one verse that everyone loved and remembered.

Hip-Hop was a mouth peace for the streets to tell our Government that we are still here, and they had to listen to us. As a child I did not quite understand why people were so mad when N.W.A, said “fuck the police.” Yet, as I got older, and could see the brutality of many police officers to people of color, I understood the point then.

However, in the last couple of years, Hip-Hop has lost its way, it has become less and less about skill, and more about how many cars or t.v’s you have. It has become less of a revolution, and more of cash cow for big companies. I am still trying to find out when this happened. Maybe it was when, record companies realized that money could be made if they invested into the music of the streets.

You know, Hip-Hop is more American then Country Music, because Hip-Hop allows all cultures to be apart of the struggle of coming from poverty. There is not a sprinkle here or there like country music. Hip-Hop, is a music for all cultures, and now all levels of success. Being that the music has become more about what you have, rather than what you came from. Now everyone has a story to tell, and know one has a purpose.

Yes, I know, we must grow up sometimes or we must mature, but it seems that Hip-Hop has gone bacwards rather than forwards. It has seemed to grow backwards like “The Curse Case of Benjman Button.” We are going the wrong way while everyone else is moving forward. Very few artist speak on subjects that have meaning or think about what they are saying. There was once a time when you had to be an MC to even hold a mic in your hands. There was a time that you carried around a note pad to write your thoughts, and the only people that free styled while in the booth was Biggie and Jay-z. Now everyone freestyles, and no one takes Hip-Hop as an art form.

Were have the Slick Rick’s gone, where has the Rakim’s gone. Artist like that don’t just die, they should inspire generation to come, in a hope that they copy the greatest rather than diss them. As a part of this Hip-Hop generation, we have lost who we are. We have lost what we could have become, we have lost ourselves within quest for money, and not the quest for greatness. Better yet, why can’t we have both? Why must it be one or the other, why can’t you be an artist, mc, poet, revloutionary, author, reporter, giver of hope, hustler, lover, and fighter. Hip-Hop where have you gone?