CRITICS PAY ATTENION: Hip-Hop is a Revolution, Always Evolving.

For the starters Hip-Hop is an artistic form of expression Media back off, congress back off, we are not committing a crime, we are making music. The recent outrage about Hip-Hop artist Common’s invitation to perform poetry at the White House is not the first time our freedom of expression is under attack and unfortunately it will not be the last. Because there are still people out there who only care for Hip-Hop when they can criticise the art form. Though through the years Hip-Hop has produced some of the brightest stars in the music industry, yet all they see is ignorance, lack of intelligence, pants sacking and loud mouths yelling in a microphone. The people who hold such views lack knowledge of the art and are uninformed.

Hip-hop is expressive. We paint the harsh reality, the grim side of life and hold no punches. We say fuck, bitch, nigger, motherfucker on records, you say it in your home. Hip-Hop doesn’t lie about who we are as people. The art form is confrontational and will always be. If you don’t like the art I understand, there are many music genres to choose from. But even though you don’t like Hip-Hop you cannot deny the music has broke race barriers and brought races together more than any other music genre. Because of Hip-Hop your son will hire my son or the other way around. There was a time the genre used to represent solely people with struggles, today it represents all walks of life. Today you will be hard-pressed to find a country in the world where Hip-Hop is not listened to or performed.

Common (Lonnie Rashid Lynn, Jr) is one of the most positive Hip-Hop artists out here. His lyrics have always been positive, educational and uplifting and about bettering of the black community. No Hip-Hop music listener will call Common a gangster rapper or a violence advocate. Common is the type of artist who has a reason for saying whatever he is saying. As an artist myself I can tell you this: The first time I learned of the death of Steve Biko, Amadou Diallo and others I wrote a “Fuck the Police” song condemning the excessive violence cops use to eliminate my people. With a loaded song like that it is easy to go around the point I am trying to make and put me in a bad light. All you have to do is to play excerpt to the public (where I am talking about hurting a police officer) and go voila: is this what we want our kids to listen to? 

Seeing the people who were making a fuss of Common’s visit to the White House (Sarah Palin, Karl Rove and Fox News) I shouldn’t waste my time addressing this topic. However Hip-Hop has been under attack for far too long and we have to make a strong voice against the people and networks wanting to keep it in the dark and negative. Yes, there are ignorant, selfish, unintelligent rappers out there.  I would be the first to co-sign. But name one music genre there is not. The attitude or behaviour of one individual or a few does not speak for the whole art. 30 years from now your all time greatest music charts will have 1/3 Hip-Hop songs. Hip-Hop is a revolution and it’s always evolving.