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Separation unnatural in hip-hop juice

By Clayton Woullard
cwoullar@mscd.edu

I was having a conversation with a classmate a couple weeks ago about hip-hop and rap. He said you can turn on the radio to KS107.5 and the station ID will say “No. 1 in today’s hottest hip-hop and R&B.” He said what they play is rap, not hip-hop. It all had to do with content, he said, and that hip-hop is about positivity and real issues, whereas rap music is about materialism, degrading women, violence and male chauvinism. It was when he said 2Pac was more rap, and a little hip-hop when he did more positive songs, that I felt compelled to argue his point further.

Hip-hop historian Davey D has said that by separating rap and hip-hop, you create a false defi nition, and that one is part of the whole. Hip-hop culture is a larger umbrella that includes graffi ti art, breakdancing, turntabalism (aka scratching) and rapping. The latter two represent the musical art form. Still, my classmate said, I was being technical and basically suggested my argument was one of semantics. But it goes beyond that.

I see these people as cultural elitists. In hip-hop they’re often fans called backpackers – mostly white suburban kids whose only exposure to hip-hop is via MTV and BET – who see hip-hop and rap as separate genres. But I’ve come across more and more non-backpacker people of all backgrounds who have slightly different criteria concerning this philosophy.

Geof Wollerman described this philosophy in his review of Common’s new album, Finding Forever, in the Aug. 16 issue of The Metropolitan: “Rap is all about where your hoes are at, how you made your loot, how much you love your bling, and what you’re going to do to all the fakers who doubt you. Hip-hop, on the other hand, is more about that fineass girl who’s caught your eye, the bullshit of politics, the false security of street life, and why bling is a bunch of bullshit.”

Let’s take Wollerman’s definition of rap and contrast it with the Sugarhill Gang’s “Rapper’s Delight,” considered to be hip-hop music’s first major hit. The second verse covers all of his criteria. MC Big Bank Hank raps about his bling, (in this case clothes and cars: “Ya see I got more clothes than Muhammad Ali and I dress so viciously” and “I got a Lincoln Continental and a sunroof Cadillac”), where his hoes are at (“Ya say I’m gonna get a fly girl gonna get some spankin’”), how he made his loot (“Hear me talkin’ ‘bout checkbooks, credit cards/ More money than a sucker could ever spend”), and what he’s going to do to the fakers who doubt him (“But I wouldn’t give a sucker or a bum from the Rucker/ Not a dime til’ I made it again”).

Conversely, there are several socalled rap artists who fi t Wollerman’s hip-hop defi nition. Nas, a hip-hop icon and mainstream rap artist, has made a career on songs about “that fi ne-ass girl who’s caught your eye, the bullshit of politics, the false security of street life, and why bling is a bunch of bullshit,” (“Money Is My Bitch”).

P.A.A.S., a Denver rapper, producer and promoter, and Metro alum, said hip-hop is free, while rap is made to be sold, and that it’s the result of the corporatization of hip-hop culture. He said rap is a product of hiphop, but not the same.

But the first hip-hop act to take commercialization of the culture to a new level – and market some of the highest-selling shoes of all time – was Run DMC. Every hip-hop and rap artist, mainstream and underground who followed were undoubtedly infl uenced by Run DMC, and in part owe some of their success to them. But, no, they’re hip-hop because they had a positive message, these separatists might argue.

Hip-hop, though, is not this art form meant to always portray positivity. One of hip-hop’s earliest hits is “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash in which he calls attention to the poor, squalid and crime-ridden neighborhood he lives in. Telling one’s life story, or just a glimpse of it, is what hip-hop is really all about, whether an artist is telling a tale through scratching samples or emceeing. Modern artists such as 50 Cent and those you hear on mainstream radio are mostly unoriginal, untalented and over-hyped. Still they are telling their stories and giving a glimpse into their lives. What they make is hip-hop music.

That’s why we need to call it out as bad hip-hop because it offers no innovation. And glorified stories of mansions and Cadillacs that these rappers usually don’t own themselves offer no enlightenment and nothing of value to poor kids in the ghetto who wish their moms could simply afford a car. If we continue to disregard their music as just rap – this reckless genre – these artists will continue to deface hip-hop music until neither rap music or hip-hop as a whole can be recognized.