Debunking the Myth of Hip-Hop’s Political Past Posted by Nathan S. on 10/02/12 | Filed under Opinion

I clicked on "Why Do Smart Rappers Make Dumb Raps?" to read about 2 Chainz' intelligently designed ignorance, and I got it. But I also got another example of the political mythologizing of hip-hop's beginnings.

To quote:

"One can make the argument that the rappers of today were not the first to make dumb music. Back in Hip-Hop’s early years, there were songs by The Rappin’ Duke and Bobby Jimmy and the Critters. But raps by artists like Biz Markie were seen for what they were – comedy. The songs were just an occasional break from the more lyrically complex Hip-Hop of the time. No no one in his right mind wanted to hear “Pickin’ Boogers” all day, everyday on the radio. But today the airwaves are flooded with mentally-challenged music that has dumbed down the culture."

Actually, I can not only make that argument, I could prove that that quote is being used as a scare tactic.

The storyline that hip-hop was once a paragon of social consciousness and political activism that's been ruined by corporate interests is an entertaining one, which is why it gets told again and again, but there's one problem - it's not even remotely true. "Lyrically complex" hip-hop has always been the exception to the rule, even years before the first hip-hop song first hit the radio.

In fact, the very first days of hip-hop were entirely focused and completely on partying. DJ Kool Herc, who's invented hip-hop as much as anyone could invent an entire culture, didn't care at all about lyrical complexity or social consciousness, he only cared about one thing - getting people to dance and have a good time. It's an attitude that pervaded hip-hop's founders. Herc, Afrika Bambaataa, Grandmaster Caz, Grand Wizzard Theodore, they were all first and foremost focused on making the planet rock.

With the notable exception of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message", one of the first songs in hip-hop history to take a more socially oriented view, almost all of hip-hop's early years were driven by the need to entertain. And even for Flash "The Message" was the exception - have you seen The Furious Five in the early days? Those dudes were swagging harder than Lil B could even dream of.

From the SugarHill Gang to Run DMC to LL Cool J to the Beastie Boys, hip-hop's first true commercial successes, the songs and albums that moved from hip-hop from a subculture into the mainstream, were largely devoid of any larger social and political messages. KRS-ONE may be the teacher now, but back in the day he was "Criminally Minded".

It wasn't really until Public Enemy emerged in in the late '80s that hip-hop took on a more stridently political and confrontational tone, a movement that lasted as a significant force until the mid to late '90s when the far less political Tupac, Biggie and later Jay-Z, Eminem and Kanye took over as hip-hop's loudest voices.

So frankly a sentence like, "....today the airwaves are flooded with mentally-challenged music that has dumbed down the culture," is almost laughable. With rare exception the radio has always played hip-hop focused on entertaining first and educating second (if at all). What's more, hip-hop as a whole has always played hip-hop focused on entertaining first and educating second (if at all). If the only two categories you divide hip-hop into is "lyrically complex" and "dumb", then hip-hop's been dumb since the first day it popped out of the womb.

I would actually argue that in many ways hip-hop's never been more political. Yes, "Bandz a Make Her Dance" is still going to get more airplay than Brother Ali, but in the late '80s it'd be almost impossible for the average American to ever hear an artist like Brother Ali. The new generation of artists - J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Big K.R.I.T. - openly and easily embed their music will all sorts of political and social messages; the wall between "socially conscious" rap and the rest of the culture has perhaps been weaker.

This doesn't mean that hip-hop is where it should be, or we want it to be, not when you're more like to hear Tyga than Kendrick Lamar on your local radio station. But it does mean that instead of blaming 2012 for hip-hop's ills while holding up a falsely shimmering past as a paragon of hip-hop purity, we need to look deeper into the true history and roots of the culture we all love.