by Wreck 1
The worst thing about all these 30th Birthday Hip-Hop retrospectives is how many of them are perpetuating the “real hip-hop=political hip-hop” mythology. Like this one from Kristi Turnquist of the Oregonian:
Hip-hop Has Transformed Pop Culture — and Vice Versa
When it first boomed out of New York’s South Bronx more than 25 years ago, hip-hop was bare-bones but expressive, made by young men too broke to buy instruments. With turntables, microphones and words, they made music that, at its best, spoke out against poverty and injustice. Early milestones such as Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five’s “The Message” and Public Enemy’s “It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back” established rap as a new form of protest art…
…But now, with a few exceptions, mainstream hip-hop is more party than politics, defined by videos featuring artists rapping about their cars, their jewelry and their booty-shaking women — the all-American materialism of Madison Avenue.
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