Lifelong Dedication and Gratitude for Hip Hop
I am not Jack Harlow, Eminem, Logic, G-Eazy, Slim Jesus, Vanilla Ice or even Mac Miller.
It is no secret to anyone who knows me personally that all I do is talk about hip hop, and I am basically a walking "special interest" subreddit about it. It has encapsulated my life since birth, there's no amount of words I can give towards the genre that could possibly cover my knowledge and appreciation for it. The only other thing I could think to do is this, post an ongoing lifelong love letter, not really a "note" per se, explaining my gratitude towards how it has shaped me and my worldview as a person. Another reason I am writing this intro section is to also address the obvious: I am just another southern straight white guy talking about rap. Even though I am well versed and studied in the racial, regional, and sexist aspects of the wide span history of hip hop, it is not my place to talk about those and I do not think I could meaningfully contribute on that front without sounding tone deaf. I am more interested in discussing what I have learned from hip hop on a personal, classist, political, socioeconomic, societal, and technological level. So instead of focusing on one post, one idea, or just a single avenue, I'll have this page as continuously updated sprawling so that way hopefully by the time I pass or whatever, this will hopefully cover all of my thoughts.
In the tune of Goodfellas - As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a rapper. I would have chose being a rapper over being the President of the United States. To me, rap was empowerment. I was a very weird kid, I never had any friends until high school really. I did not have neighbors and by the time I did, I think the loneliness and issues with my psychological development did damage (not complaining or trying to wallow in self pity, just giving context). I could not tell you what the first hip hop song I heard was, but the earliest I can remember being infatuated with "Hypnotize" by Biggie. From then on, and by accounts of all family growing up, I became inseparable with rap music.
For me, hip hop is the highest art form - that's why I cannot stand it when people do the whole "I am not a rapper, I am an artist", because what is a rapper then? Also it just infuriates me because I look at Andre 3000 as having a more "intellectual" and artistic mind than let's say, Picasso. Hip hop to me was freedom from all restraints I was feeling. I was really weird yes, and I have no friends or acknowledgement of my existence, but have you really listened to Earl Sweatshirt? He's a surreal individual that has an estranged mind like no other, and found camaraderie so maybe I'll be okay. Hip hop was rooted in self empowerment, anti-colonialism, anti-establishment, supports community and DIY methods, all ideals I hold deeply. As a kid I knew if I became a rapper I did not need a beautiful voice, I did not need to be the cool guy, I just needed to be myself and confident in that. I struggled with that my whole life, but also ultimately decided into my teen years being a rapper probably is not a good idea since I would basically be Eminem 2.0 and that's not what the world needs right now, so at that time I decided to just steadily study hip hop like a scientist and maybe be a journalist or something for it (which is maybe equally as evil being just another G-Eazy).
I think I should also address other obvious hip hop things about me. I've been through it all with hip hop, it's evolutions and it's relationship to me and my "demographic". Before the internet, I was walking to the library to read all I could and I was sitting on the floor of any grocery store I could be at to read XXL and The Source while sitting on the floor of the isle. During the blog era I was still walking to the library for internet, but I had a cheap ass Windows phone that had 2GB of data before it would restrict internet access because my mom was not about to pay for that shit, so I also was seeing the budding phases of the blog era transferring to Twitter and now, Instagram. I was there, I was one of those hybebeast white kids with Nike elite socks, colorful "What The?" color ways of sneakers, staying up till 3AM researching the newest Supreme drop on a Sneaker News forum while listening to whatever dropped on Datpiff or SoundCloud. I was also once the white kid listening to Hopsin, Eminem, and T3ch N9ne preaching about "real hip hop". I was next the white kid who wore ripped up thrifted jeans, colorful striped shirts with flowers on them or some shit listening to Tyler the Creator, Childish Gambino, and Kanye West who called those artists "different" (I was blind at these times please cut me some slack for being vulnerable). All of these different iterations of me spawned from my love of hip hop, there would be no me without rap, we are inseparable. For better or for worse at times, my intentions with hip hop were always of utmost respect, akin to how historians drool over philosophers I guess.
Another way I'd like to talk about my relationship with hip hop (all of this will apply until I'd say, when I was in high school maybe? like 10th grade?) is within the context of it being a separate "world" that I almost had to study in secret. Growing up in the south in the early 2000s in rural South Carolina, an interest in hip hop was a lonely one. My mom (I love her to death, she was just being a nice mom, she don't have internet) was obviously not approving of me trying to emulate these artists, I had no friends but even when I did try to talk to people, they had no idea what I was talking about. Even for the things I can relate to, it was in the wrong way. A circle of kids might joke around about the funniest videos they've seen recently, but at the library they only allowed for like an hour max of computer use so I was never was just surfing the internet, I always had a pre planned list of things to look up before I went onto the computer. I had no idea what the hell Smosh was until a neighbor showed me on their phone and they said everyone was watching it, but when I was showing that same person that infamous video of Boosie counting money and laying on it on the ground saying "If you find a 20 I'm pussy" (I thought it was the funniest video ever at the time), they looked at me like I was from a foreign land, even though that is legitimately what I was using my time online for: hip hop and it's adjacent cultures. This is almost a "secret" of sorts I had to keep hidden, and confuse people on, as I seen rappers as higher minds than what other people were inspired by. For example, I remember in 3rd grade there was a poetry competition that everyone was asked to participate in as a class activity. The winner(s) got their pieces printed in a county wide book from the Spartanburg County District 5 school district. I had no interest, but they chose my piece and printed it. I was not exactly an acclaimed child, so this was a big deal and my mom ordered a copy and I still cherish that achievement. The ironic part of it all is (I don't remember the quote, the book got accidentally thrown away during moving) I stole the quote from a Nas verse and framed it as poetry, I have actually never admitted that to anyone (sorry mom). It's an almost sickening thought now as I look back at it, as really I was secretly infusing black culture within me like a symbiote while just acting like a quiet stereotypical nerdy suburban kid in the outside world, thus creating a naive destructive consumer like the ones who would run hip hop pages during my high school years and onwards. I never have seen any classic Disney movies and cartoons, but I have seen every "hood" movie, episode of The Chappelle Show like 40 times, and I have even seen a rare only broadcasted once, one season only, show that was like Drake & Josh but Method Man and Redman instead. It wasn't until I had the internet, had a group of friends, actually went into the outside world and talked to people that I realized my folly: I was just another straight southern white guy harping off of black culture and thinking I was this PhD researcher in hip hop.
About 6-7 years ago I started wanting to publicly embrace my knowledge of hip hop, as I wanted to start learning about myself and being vulnerable as a whole. I was for damn sure not about to be another one of those parasitic hip hop pages owned by someone estranged from the culture, and someone who really hasn't dedicated to this shit. One thing I have been alluding to and have been struggling in a way to express is really how I view hip hop figures and their works as of a higher plane. As a child, you really, REALLY, could not tell me I needed to listen to anything any figure of authority could say because for one, rap is anti-authority and second, I looked at Illmatic as a blueprint to the world much like the Bible, how could I possibly listen to what was expected of me where I am from? The same artists I put on a pedestal were inspiring me in ways that directly contradicted the expectations of me on a regional, personal, political, and social level.
I know in the previous paragraphs I was trying to address the "elephant in the room" of white people being a guest in the House of Hip Hop (even though I literally said I wasn't going to in the first paragraph), but also I was trying to really give the precursor to what would hip hop would plant the seeds in me for but I didn't have the words for : class and it's effects on me and us as a species. I was always thinking about it but I just put it in terms of "professionalism" and "corporate"/"entrepreneur" hustle mindset terms. Like I was explaining in other paragraphs, I would argue with teachers/authority figures that the rap verses I were referencing in things were legitimate sources of information/concepts, not just some simple entertainment. Three 6 Mafia was fully independent and struck partnerships with distributors, labels, publishing agencies, all kinds of business decisions in which if it was some pathetic lame guy who wears Southern Tide and gets his haircut at Great Clips would most likely be hailed as a successful entrepreneur in which people should model, and even would be invited by those same teachers I spoke of to do lectures. While I could reference the obvious historical racist origins of this mindset that has plagued us as a society since hip hop's inception, I always looked at this as a class issue. From hip hop's core principles, it engrained something in me that powered my every thought dealing with class : If I breath the same air, have the same number of limbs, have the same 24 hours, and just as human, and therefore just as fragile, as these in a higher class, why can't I have the same things? Why are they treated with more respect just from existing? Why can't me, and by extension YOU, have the same right to total freedom and comfortable life, and dare I say, one you enjoy with no limitations or settling?
Hip Hop has always kept the illusions of class in the forefront of its ethos. A successful entrepreneur/politician/member of society is expected to have a nice house, a meaningful career, a family, whatever have you. When a rapper speaks of doing those same things despite being within the same system that keeps them down, miraculously one might say from a socioeconomic perspective, it is labeled as "urban" and only about "sex, drugs, and money". Classism uses these framing and manipulation techniques often, especially with anything dealing with black culture. It is even more ludicrous when you are comparative to other musicians, when the epitome of American music is Rock n Roll, which has a tagline of literally "sex, drugs, and Rock n Roll!". Matter of fact, "sex, drugs, and Rock n Roll" and its larger implications are as American as can be. Blues was stripped away, rebranded, and modified to white people's liking to create Rock music, there have been untold numbers of black men and women beaten or executed over false sexual crimes, and there have been centuries of medical experiments and trials done forcefully to black people, knowing or not. So to then spit back the same rhetoric of saying just talking about sex, drugs and money to a Hip Hop artist, while supporting the same ethos being spouted from a (of course white created) Rock n Roll Hall of Fame inductee is a form of classism that is comparable to savagery. Harvey Weinstein was seen as the model successful Hollywood figure for years and was a multi-millionaire before imprisonment. Lil Wayne is seen publicly, and it was even a meme at large at one point, as almost illiterate and as a fool, but he is debatably one of the most influential artists of all time (regardless of genre), inspired countless generations of children for the objective better, and is also a multi-millionaire/model rapper. The only difference between the two is the classist and racist lens in which you view them, and that Wayne is not imprisoned and does not have over 80 allegations of sexual assault to clear up. In fact, in his music he speaks a lot about consensual sex and how the other party was even enjoying the act, maybe Weinstein could even study Wayne for a bit. Like I am trying to get at, there are many concepts we can all learn from Hip Hop.
Punk music for me, upon the discovery of Nirvana, showed me that there is community in DIY and grassroots methods, it is not just a "because there is no other way" method and should even be encouraged. This page is not about Punk music. What that did make me do post-Nirvana is go back and see that is what I missed my whole time studying hip hop music as a kid. It made me realize the importance of the avenues and methods in how you choose to consume your media, and how you interact with your passions. Growing up, my worldview was curated by hip hop music, music videos, what I heard from interviews, what hip hop blogs were saying, hip hop magazines, etc. This is obvious, but also just a superficial curated experience. Punk music and what I would later study more deeply with electronic music, demands and encourages interaction with the music and community. You should go to a show, contribute to organizing an event, volunteer your time for others, etc. Most hip hop community on the surface level as a consumer are just debates about who the "goat" is, why an album flopped and was better or worse than the one last week, and other examples of semantical nonsense disguised as the "hip hop community". This curated hip hop world in which labels, shareholders, and major media outlets have outlined for us to work in is a major contradiction and an active hindrance to the real hip hop community. I then went back through my whole life's playlist of hip hop studies and researched the real communities and efforts which were made to create the aspects of hip hop we all cherish and use to empower ourselves, which is separate from the classist corporate world that we dub the "industry". Punk, electronic, and rap music all share that DIY, community led foundation. Rap and electronic music's history directly are linked with the advancements in the STEM fields, Punk and Rap music shared the same venues up until recent years, when the "urban" term started to dominate (side note : another classist and racist framing technique are the terms "alternative" and "urban", the former being associated with whiteness and corporate culture and the latter associated with black culture, but only after it's approval of white culture to be dubbed "urban" instead of just "black" or whatever the media actually is, such as calling an album a Metal album because that's objectively what it is instead of just calling it "urban" because a black person released it).
I furiously rushed to this note just so I could type this while I was crying for the first time in like 5/6 years. I am listening to A Man Apart (Intervention) by RX Papi and I'm bawling my eyes out because I never have seen a single song summarize my "story" better than this. Then I start bawling more, I was in awe at the power of how much hip hop has changed me as a person and humanity for the better. Hip Hop is DIY philosophy, academia and education for the people, expression of the masses, working class history, it is so much. It strips away all invisible walls we have trained ourselves from the beginning of time from class and oppression, in whatever method you may want to see it. Professionalism, intellectualism, racism, sexism, classism, everything is shed away to celebrate the individual subjective stories and expression. Farther than the individual, for those to come together as people expressing themselves for these reasons have immense cultural and artistic power I would akin only to a revolution, or giving power to the masses/people. I have been preaching the same concepts this whole page, but it is important to get as much context into this to see how I have viewed and studied hip hop. Hip Hop to most is entertainment, to some it is even a lifestyle, to some maybe a "higher art" like you would present at a museum. For me it is all of those and more, it is a philosophical view, a political theory, a social revolution, it is everything you breathe around you. It is weaponized against you, but also is weaponized and used as a tool and outlet for the people who need it the most, who it was intended for. A disabled person might join a band but will just have to "adjust" to be able to express themselves in the larger Rock economy and cultural model; while a rapper who were to be disabled and celebrate that, and not adjust to a different cultural "perfect" model, would see great success and is encouraged. In this way, we can look at KRS One and the same way as Plato, Nas as Einstein, Jay Z as Caesar, etc. To be a rapper is the same as being an anthropologist, historian, artist, revolutionary, philosopher and more all into one. This is what I am getting at: hip hop is everything we look at as a higher class or education or what have you, strips it away, and reframes it in a working class, humanitarian, anti-colonial way.
Today I was with someone who I hold dearly, and while listening to "Dancing on a Pole" by Three 6 Mafia, they asked me, "how old were you when you first heard this?". I told them about 8 or 9 most likely, and then we talked about the various ages most people started hearing hip hop music for the first time. See, this is what interests me when talking to most people about hip hop music, that they can even remember the first time they heard hip hop music, or their exposure to it. For me, it is like asking me if I remember the first time I used a restroom, or other vague things every human goes through but can never pinpoint a "first time" memory for it. I can never remember the first hip hop songs I heard, I only remember being infatuated with it as early as I can remember. As mentioned before, the earliest specific song I can attach a memory to would be "Hypnotize" by Biggie, but that is just the earliest I can remember. Even as a kid before their split, when my parents would be sleeping in shifts while the other worked in shifts, I would watch BET, VH1, and MTV religiously. Then, once I started school, my grandmother would take me to the library, but I have talked about the library enough. Even outside of that, most childhood memories with my dad's side of the family revolve around hip hop. My dad and I shared an MP3 player and CD player growing up, and my dad is a huge hip hop head. My cousin and I would skateboard, and come home and listen to Hopsin and watch Wild N'Out. I am a lower middle class white kid who grew up in the south, so of couse Eminem is ingrained in my DNA whether I signed up for it or not. What I am getting at is for others, hip hop was discovered or was shown to them. For me, hip hop IS me, it is my childhood, my home, my rock if all of my senses fail me.