Hip Hop From my Perspective

There are thousands of articles on the net that talk about the breakdown of hip hop. There's breakdancing, mc'n, graffiti, dj'n, and beatboxing. What I'm going to focus on in this article, is my own personal account of hip hop based on my experiences. Hip hop tends to be a gauge of what's going on in society. I think it is this aspect that has caused this genre of music to survive for so many years. When you see a rapper with his jewels and see him bragging about his cars and money, it becomes easy to judge him or her, but that is why judgement is a sin. The newspapers and news shows rarely show how the same person is taking care of countless relatives and sometimes supporting whole communities. People who are real and see both sides of the picture understand why the music is the way that it is.

In general, an mc such as myself goes through stages. They start out by emulating when they are young. The first stage is just memorizing songs and repeating them in the mirror. I remember reciting L.L. Cool J's "I'm gonna knock you out", and Curtis Blow's "If I ruled the world" for hours in front of the mirror. Then as confidence grows, a person begins to write their own raps. These tend to be about partying and being a good person..etc. Now as the person gets better, they then decided to recite these poems for the public. Depending on the level of skill that the person has, these mini shows will start to attract women and men who want to support for either personal gain or just to support the music and someone doing something positive for his or herself. Then comes the darkside of hip hop. Where there is good, there must be evil. There will be those who had all of the females attention and they won't be happy that this new person is coming into their territory. They will begin a campaign of intimidation, sometimes coming up with slanderous raps about the new "intruder". The strongest mc's will not drop to their level at first, but these people will search for weaknesses relentlessly. Their final attack will be on the mc's family. This is usually the straw that broke the camels back. At this point, the mc's music will start to reflect this struggle. He will begin to talk violently and even brag about his posessions to retaliate. This kind of talk then confuses the general public who hears the rapper for the first time. They don't know about the threats he and his family are receiving or any of the back story of who he is talking about. All they see is their children reciting the violent rhymes. It is in this way that hip hop then becomes another tool for evil, because even after the dispute is over, the song will still be available for the rest of history. That's why it is so important to ignore the haters. It seems like such a cliche, but it should never be downplayed.

When I graduated high school at the age of 18 as a foster kid, there was really nowhere for me to go other than the military. This is where most kids from the hood go to try to get money for college and just to get a little help catching up with the kids who received extra boosts in the game of life, by their parents. On the east coast, most of the military training sites are around Atlanta Georgia. This is why hip hop is so centered in that area. Even the hardest gangster rappers won't be able to resist the booty music and now snap and Krunk music for long. That's why the majority of east coast rappers go back home, but you can still feel a little of the downsouth persuasion in their new music.

Then of course we all grow up hearing about stories of the big apple. Just about every rapper will go through a new york phase. Many will actually believe they are from there and tell females that in order to get play. A 6 month stay in Brooklyn turns into being "from" Brooklyn. I have to say that I have been guilty of this myself, but in my defense, I would say that as a foster kid, I wasn't able to associate with anyone from upstate. The only people that talked to me where people from the city that had traveled up there. In a sense, if you're only around a person from NY, and nobody else for awhile, you kind of are in NY and sometimes will even develop an accent.

The west coast is a little different. I can only speak about the west through what I've seen and read, because I haven't been out there yet. I just didn't want to leave them out because they tend to have some serious tempers - jk. From what I see though, the music has two definite sides. You have the Compton type of gangsta rap that just seems to be a constant discussion about who is more likely to kill the other person and who has the most stuff. I think this goes back to the where I talked about the progression from conscious to angry rap. Then you have the bay area, kind of beach party influenced rap. There's a lot of jumping around and riding on the hoods of moving vehicles with no drivers.
These are just some random observations that I've made about hip hop. I still have a ways to go before I fully understand it. I think it is always going to be around as long as kids from the hood have to struggle. Which at this point looks like forever.

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