 Hip-hop renegade Mos Def. Photo: Geffen Records. |
Music, like all art, is the outward manifestation of an artist’s creative and passionate ideas. Artists often try to model their work on their art’s predecessors, whose ideas continue to resonate through time. Artistic pioneers – like Hemingway in literature, the Beatles in rock music, and Escher in visual art – continue to influence new artists in their respective fields.
Perhaps more than other art forms, music builds very much on its past. Composers today incorporate chords that were written centuries ago into new pieces. Similar musical themes have been used countless times by various artists to evoke specific emotions and reactions from listeners. New fields of music continue to blossom and create new trends; jazz and rock were some of the most influential of the past century.
The influence of popular predecessors can be heard in today’s rock music. Echoes of Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Jimi Hendrix and more contemporary bands including Radiohead and the Red Hot Chili Peppers come through in much of modern rock.
Self-awareness as the basis for musical inspiration has taken center stage in a new form: hip-hop. The best-selling and most interesting hip-hop acts in the last few years have come from hip-hop’s historians, artists with great respect for the genre’s pioneers – Nas, Common, Kanye West, the Roots and others.
Mainstream hip-hop’s beginnings go back to the 1970’s, but the genre cemented itself in the public consciousness with the first true hip-hop artists like Run-DMC, Public Enemy, Dead Prez, N.W.A., A Tribe Called Quest, and others who are credited with supporting the early rise of hip-hop.
True verbal maestros were discovered, maestros who have appealed across races and sparked political and social conversation, yet still provided radio stations and dance clubs with playable tracks. Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., and Nas became larger-than-life figures in the early 1990’s, taking lyrics to the next level of complexity and raising hip-hop to new heights of popularity. These artists focused, for the most part, on meaningful lyrics, interesting rhythms, creative musical voicing (using something other than generic drums, bass and turntables to make the music in the song) and most of all: pure entertainment. This time in hip-hop marked a period of storytelling, emotional openness, undeniable talent and at times, genuine musicality.
So what happened? Recently, it seems mainstream rap no longer cares about intelligent rhymes or interesting musicality. As Chicago’s Common said in RedEye on September 28th, “Man, anybody can rap nowadays!” For every lyrically gifted MC like Kanye West, there are a million Soulja Boys, Ja Rules, and 50 Cents who damage hip-hop’s reputation with their inane lyrics and non-cleverly recycled beats.
But there’s hope. Evidence of hip-hop’s regression to its more intelligent foundation is tangible in certain contemporary performances. Concerts by Common and The Roots in Chicago recently showed undeniable artistry.
Common performed with two keyboardists, backup singers, a drummer, and a DJ who played an electric drum pad throughout much of the show. He also had a spontaneous freestyle, rapping completely unscripted, for at least five minutes straight. The Roots consists of two percussionists, including the tremendous Questlove on drums, a guitarist, bassist, and even a tuba player in addition to Black Thought, one of the best lyricists on the planet.
Both acts included song covers from hip-hop over fifteen years old. The Roots covered N.W.A., Wu-Tang, Tupac, Notorious B.I.G., and even Luther Vandross in a truly musical showcase. Common rapped a song from Nas’s 1994 masterpiece Illmatic and covered several Tribe Called Quest songs. Kanye West has performed for over a year with a full strings section – violins, violas, cellos, and even harps. This versatility of styles and influences shows respect for hip-hop itself.
Rap has a larger audience than many realize. On the Billboard charts this week the top seven are all hip-hop songs. But this significant audience shouldn’t be exploited by cheap beats and hollow rhymes. Senseless, sexist, and materialistic lyrics bring negativity to hip-hop. Many critics of hip-hop often gloss over hip-hop songs that blend socially responsible themes with intelligent poetry.
For example, Jay-Z’s last album Kingdom Come features a song, “Minority Report,” about the government’s lack of involvement in Katrina relief. His deeply moving song off of The Blueprint 2.0, “Meet the Parents,” talks about gun violence and the destructively vicious cycle in desperate neighborhoods.
Kanye West has talked about the hip-hop culture and its dangers, (“All Falls Down,” “Addiction”), and the importance of family (“Roses“). Common raps about many social issues, but also something most rappers of this day don’t touch: love. Listen to “I Used To Love H.E.R.” or “The Light” for a change of pace from a hip-hop culture that values sex over love.
So will hip-hop ever grow up? Hip-hop is currently witnessing a battle between its most interesting and its most talentless stars . The good news is that Graduation and Finding Forever (Kanye and Common, respectively) were both #1 albums this year. Hip-hop is more popular than ever and is now at a crossroads: as long as musically gifted artists are the major ambassadors for hip-hop, it will return to its meaningful roots. But if vacuous and immature dance tunes continue to dominate hip-hop, Nas is right: hip-hop is dead. It’s up to the new faces of hip-hop, and the fans, to decide what direction the art form will take.