Why Modern Hip-Hop’s Protected Paradigm is Keeping Us from Progressing
This isn’t a death sentence to hip-hop. This isn’t a bitter diatribe against the youth or its habits. This isn’t a refusal to adapt and I’m not merely clinging to nostalgia. But there’s a dark cloud looming above hip-hop right now that’s casting a shadow on the progressive creativity that used to give the genre life, and it’s called commercialism.
I had been newly hired as an intern at Hot 97, and as an impassioned student of hip-hop, I was eager to learn about the popular radio station’s dynamic, particularly their strategies for crafting daily set lists. I was deflated, though, when a music programming director explained the process bluntly: Hot 97 finds, using a number of industry metrics, the small batch of songs that its target demographic is regularly listening to, then cycle those ten-to-fifteen tracks in regurgitated rotations all day long, with little leeway.
This is not news. And in some respects, the logic is valid. The traditional framework of the music industry is tumbling like a Jenga tower, with radio wobbling on unsteady blocks. Hot 97’s model has proven successful for the past 25 years — it’s currently New York’s premiere hip-hop radio station — so playing a song that isn’t in the top tier of the Billboard charts poses the risk of listenership loss, thus materializing into less-than-comparable profits. Thus, the tentative execs behind the station’s set lists, already quaking in their boots, color inside the lines to keep themselves (and their careers, families, homes, etc.) afloat.
This formula — calculating what we want and handing it to us on a silver platter — has certainly kept Hot 97 relevant and gets them by financially, but it unveils an important truth of the music industry’s recent track record. We’re getting everything we want from hip-hop right now, and it’s ruining us.
We’ve made these mistakes before. When hip-hop was a toddler genre in the 1980s, it was already rich with meaningful content, but the corporate invasion of rap music painted a misleading portrait of its diversified family tree and its extraordinary potential for cultural, political, and racial commentary. Years ago, hip-hop was dumbed down through commercialization and money-hungry industrialists.
During this time, a number of substyles — conscious, political, afrocentric — became increasingly unrepresented as industry executives began taking notice of gangsta rap’s marketability as it was portrayed through simple-minded, apolitical stereotypes. Apparently, America loved getting peeks into the violent, criminal and misogynistic activity existent in ghetto communities, even if they were one-dimensional metaphors, and their willingness to pay for it became evident on the sales charts. The record industry began to turn heads, and the concerns of industrialists turned from enriching communities to hounding eager-to-spend audiences. As a result, the creative, forward-thinking characters standing at the core of hip-hop were shuffled under the rug.
Nowadays, with the music industry becoming increasingly streamlined, more and more creative control is being returned to the hands of the artists. But in many mainstream hip-hop cases, artists are taking on the habits of avaricious label leaders, blindly chasing after demand without stopping to meditate on the potential of their art.
What A Time to Be Alive, the collaborative mixtape from Drake and Future, who both are sitting on top-level thrones in rap’s royal circle right now, didn’t particularly break ground. Over what sounded like a handful of DS2 throwaway beats, Drake delivered his predictable mix of stainless club hits and stripper lullabies, slightly more slurred than usual to tag along with his collaborator’s Atlanta flow. Future gave his emblematic odes to codeine and rainstorms of cash in European strip clubs. This isn’t to say, however, that there isn’t a time and place for an album like WATTBA; it was a solid illustration of Drake and Future doing what Drake and Future do best.
But that’s just it. What A Time to Be Alive was exactly what everyone thought it would be. Drake and Future know they’re capable of making widely selling hits; they’ve proven this. They demonstrated their perfected formula on this album, barely having to make an effort to push 500K in the first week of the its release.
A similar approach appears on Fetty Wap’s newest, self-titled album, in which he chewed up and spit out 20 regurgitated versions of “Trap Queen.” Again, the rationale is logical; that trap-pop crooning has verified fruitful for Fetty — he made history in August when he became first act to simultaneously chart first four charting singles in the top 10 of Hot Rap Songs — so he chose to restructure the composition of his biggest hits in hopes of seeing optimal results.
There’s a problem here that goes beyond the realm of rap albums and radio stations — one that extends far beyond the corporate balance sheets and industry charts. Here’s what mainstream hip-hop, and the organizations controlling it, have been failing to understand: there’s no such thing as progression without experimentation. There’s no such thing as balance without diversity. And there’s no such thing as evolution without new ideas.
It’s a fundamental principle in nature. The Earth’s natural assets give way to the basic functions of plant and animal (including human) life, and a lack of biodiversity can cause serious stumbling blocks in the environment. For instance, many medical and technological discoveries are made through increased understanding of our planet’s rich biodiversity, and its loss can limit the accessibility of these advancements. The Convention on Biological Diversity states that “at least 40 percent of the world’s economy and 80 percent of the needs of the poor are derived from biological resources. In addition, the richer the diversity of life, the greater the opportunity for medical discoveries, economic development, and adaptive responses to such new challenges as climate change.” So, if our ecosystems lose heterogeneity, our ability to move forward becomes hindered.
Look at NASA. As an organization that has made invaluable contributions for the betterment of aeronautics and North American space programs, it’s proven what it’s capable of. Even so, NASA routinely challenges the public for ideas and pitches to contribute to new technologies and missions. Most recently, it curated a design competition trying participants to use 3D printing technology to conjure architectural concepts for what life on Mars would look like. Last month, NASA publicly extended an opportunity for master and graduate students to submit fellowships applications in relevant space technology disciplines. It was the sixth call NASA had issued for space technology research fellowships since 2011. The National Aeronautics and Space Association is staffed by some of the world’s intelligent astronomers and researchers, but even NASA knows that seeking outside perspective is a fundamental necessity in the pursuit of progression.
Hip-hop is more and more succumbing to this lifeless, play-it-safe model that brings temptation, but only short-term success. It’s a problem because since the 1980s, hip-hop has had an impactful grip on the pen writing the narrative of African American culture, and today’s mainstream voices are contributing very little to that story. Even now, with hip-hop extending to the stories of other races, we have the opportunity to use commercial hip-hop as a conversation starter for widespread discussion, but right now, the genre is primarily surrounded by lifeless comments and critiques that have exhausted our ability to talk successfully about the issues and movements surrounding race and culture. With no genuine newness, with no sourcing of outward intellect, and with progressive vision getting abandoned in lieu of the temptation of profit, we’re failing to see the bigger picture. As a hip-hop community, we’re digging ourselves into a hole of exhaustion, handicapping our ability to have these forward-looking discussions, ultimately crimping our cultural consciousness.
