Hip Hop History

Everybody knows the history of hip-hop, right? It used to be all about telling the hard truths of the underclass to a world that didn’t want to hear it. Rappers were like Christian, socially-minded Robin Hoods.

AND THEN the world got to it and corrupted the noble, pure art form. Now — having lost its original impetus of exposing social injustice — rap music is all about bling and bitches..

Sadly, this myopic creation-myth is nothing more than a pack of self-righteous lies!

The first thing that’s wrong with it, of course, is that In The Beginning hip-hop didn’t have any words! At all!! As Kool Herc — hip-hop’s primordial O.G., the man who started it all — demonstrates in the video below, the art form originally started in the early 1970’s with DJs playing instrumental breaks (instead of whole songs) at dance parties.

The rapper was there to keep the party going — hence the “Yes, yes, y'all” chants of yesteryear.

The original “party MCs” were NOT keen on quoting abortion statistics or preaching Islam (which can be a huuge downer and kill the party mood!)

The alleged cardinal sins of today — excessive materialism, degradation of women, etc., are present in the earliest rap lyrics because (trust me) that’s what you like to hear about while you’re grinding.

Let’s examine two pioneering rap songs. King Tim III’s “Personality Jock” (1979), has the same kind of exaggerated boasting that modern-day critics snipe at, plus encouragement to the ladies to “let your body work”:

Then there is the Rosetta Stone of the old-school: “Rapper’s Delight”. This Meme Song of Early Rap™ was not immune to bling and booty. Big Bank Hank’s verse (which was, lest we forget, stolen from Grandmaster Caz), discusses women in ways that would be familiar to his Too-Short-inspired protégés:

I’m…the ladies' pimp

The women fight for my delight…He can’t satisfy you with his little wormBut I can bust you out with my super-sperm

REVEALED: The Meme Rap of the Golden Age is little more than a “fuck song”

So, if the sins of contemporary hip-hop were there in the beginning, why does the myth persist? It has much to do with the Cult of the “MC Messiah”..

Evolving away from a party art form and towards a recorded medium, hip-hop abandoned DJ-centricity, with the audience’s focus shifting to the MC. The early MCs attained a cult of personality. With no requirement to be gangsters, rappers could focus on wordplay. In this “Neolithic” Age of Hip-Hop, rap and thuggery remained hermetically sealed; in “Ghetto Qu'ran”, 50 Cent pines for the days when rappers were rappers, and gangsters were gangsters.

MCs were free to have a variety of personalities: There were ladies' men like Big Daddy Kane, Afrocentrists like the Jungle Brothers, tough guys like Schoolly D, and — yes — even the Ur-Jesus MCs (Public Enemy) spewing forth sociopolitical commentary.

In Modern Times — unlike the “Golden Age” — rappers have a limited range of “acceptable personalities” to choose from. Rappers need to pretend to sell drugs, beex-convicts.. and Heaven forbid if we listen to an ex-C.O.!

The situation continues to the present day. It’s to the point where even Lil Wayne — a deeply idiosyncratic fellow who has been recording since he was knee-high to a grasshopper — feels the need to constantly talk about his gang affiliations and propensity to shoot people. In Weezy’s defense, his Thug Impostor-status is entertainingly absurd — who ever heard of a 5'6'‘ goon / pussy-eating afficionado with such gusto?

The narrowed spectrum of acceptable MC personas has made it especially tough for female rappers to adapt. Female Golden Age rappers had mainstream success with awide variety of sounds and images. Now, female rappers who want mainstream exposure can either be sexy:

or, um, slutty (and sexy too..):

Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

The reasons for this change are many and multi-faceted, and too involved to catalog here — the growth of hip-hop as a viable and profitable genre, the overwhelming commercial success of gangsta rap (in particular The Chronic and its ilk), the consolidation of the record business, the entry of actual gangsters into the hip-hop industry, the death of Yo! MTV Raps, racist social expectations and pressures on artists and labels, etc., etc.

So are we finished? Is the Death of Rap to be greeted with “Gangsta Tears”? There’s one “crack in the pavement”, as it were, that suggests otherwise… and it looks like this:

Kanye’s success has proven that the alleged need to be gangster in order to sell records was always false (are you listening, Game?).

Kanye is hardly a sociopolitical powerhouse (he seems more worried about finding skinny jeans that fit properly than spreading the Social Gospel) — but at least he’s different! Kanye has made room in the mainstream for rappers with little or no claims on street toughness.

However, even now, it’s too early to tell if Yeezy represents a paradigm shift or is sui generis. Keep in mind that even megastars can’t change the game all by themselves..

Non-gangsta artists like B.O.B., Kid Cudi, Drake and Wale are following Kanye’s footprint into the mainstream.. but who knows??

What are your thoughts? Is there room in the mainstream now for a wider variety of images and styles? Or — Kanye aside — are we likely to see rappers “whippin' it real hard” for years to come?

DISCUSS.