What Does Our Taste In Hip Hop Say About Our Society?
Perceiving American Youth By Their Taste In Hip Hop
Let’s get meta for a bit. If you were to time travel and examine our present through a retrospective lens, what could be inferred by our interests? You could refer to Google Zeitgeist for an all-encompassing internet time capsule, but for all intents and purposes, it’d be far more interesting to perceive American society in 2013 through the lens of hip hop. Last year, with top searches being the predictable obsession with celebrity suicide (Whitney Houston), teenage suicide (Amanda Todd), illegitimate social activism issues (KONY 2012), and the vestiges of irrelevant monarchies (Kate Middleton), one could get all existentially depressed about the current condition of the human consciousness. But actually, Toronto is our #1 international travel destination and “How to Install” has become more intuitive than “How to Love” — Jesus. Tap-dancing. Christ.
Google hasn’t released 2013's Zeitgeist, though it’ll be surely filled with more of the same vapid indulgence in bullshit, so I’ll be referring to a combination of Google Trends, Billboard chart toppers, and YouTube sensations to find the rappers that will be the specimen for my inquiry. I’ve chosen Tolstoy’s interpretation of the “zeitgest” in my exploration, which states that the “losses and conquests of military leaders were caused not by their decisions and skills but by uncontrollable aspects of the historical situation.” This is in opposition to Carlyle’s view, whose Great Man Theory states greatness is no accident, but a person retains specific characteristics that mark them for greatness. Transitively, I’ll be replacing “generals” with “artists” to fulfill Tolstoy’s posit that the greatness and influence of an individual is dependent on the social climate that allowed their rise, rather than them being anything special themselves.
According to Google Trends, the rappers to frequently appear on the Top 10 most trending musical artists is short: Jay-Z, Drake, Lil Wayne, Kanye West, and Nicki Minaj. These are the only artists on the list that are making music that is even vaguely hip hop, and their names appear in the top 10 each month. Referring to Billboard’s “Top Rap Albums,” the list is hardly any less nauseating. On the top is, unpredictably, HOV’s Magna Carta Holy Grail, which is then followed by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ The Heist, J. Cole’s Born Sinner, and Hoodie-fucking-Allen’sAmericoustic. MCHG has maintained its position as #1 since its release in late July, but the first half of 2013 was mainly dominated by The Heist, with A$AP Rocky’s Live.Love.A$AP and Kid Cudi’s Indicud as the only albums to take the crown from Macklemore and Ryan Lewis for more than two weeks.
Tell me how I’m not having an existential crisis right now. I never listen to the radio, and I disregard mainstream media in general, so I didn’t realize Macklemore and Ryan Lewis’ remarkably soft and saccharine brand of hip hop has so heavily pervaded American cultural taste buds. Alright, alright. We’re not even at the internet sensations yet. I’m almost afraid to continue, but who are the most viral names in the rap game? Riff Raff and Yung Lean, of course (Lil B is kind of last year and besides,Skinny analyzed the influence of his satire so well that it’s not worth writing about again).
One Be Lo nailed it on Binary Star’s “Honest Expression” when he rapped, “Yeah, today’s topic is self-destruction/I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout the KRS-One discussion/I’m talkin’ ‘bout the one too many ignorant suckers/Lying on the mic to my sisters and brothers/Every time you listen to the radio, all you hear is nonsense/They never play the bomb shit/Everything that glitters ain’t gold/And every gold record don’t glitter that’s for damn sure.” The entire track is a condemnation of the inauthentic brand of Top 40 “hip pop” and the rappers perpetuating it. It’s not like One Be Lo and Senim Silla are ignorant that it’s the people’s dollars that allow success, earlier in “Honest Expression” Senim Silla poses the question, “Should I join the hypocrites?/Or side with the suckers by choice/It makes no difference that y’all product of environment/It’s just coincidence.” Clearly, the Michigan rap duo understand the machinations of consumerism and capitalism.
Binary Star wasn’t the first to be cogniscent of the link between ignorance and marketing. Remember the famous HOV bars on “Moment of Clarity”: “I dumbed down for my audience to/double my dollars/They criticized me for it, yet they all yell “holla”/If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be/Lyrically Talib Kweli/Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense/But I did 5 mill’ — I ain’t been rhyming like Common since.” Jay Z actually acknowledges that to water himself down would lead to huge success, and look at him now, he’s obviously right. But why? Why is the American public so down with the inane, and what does it say about us?
As Jay Electronica raps on “Suckas”, “Eighty-five think they free but they really in chains,” a reference to the Five-Percenter notion that 85% of people are “blind to the knowledge of themselves and God.” I’m agnostic, so I don’t believe the only road to truth is by becoming opening myself to god — even when it’s the corporeal incarnation alluded to by Jay Elec. However, I think the statement is valid; most people are ignorant and there is a large contingent who are not but they keep the vast majority under their thumb in order to advance their own interests. This large contingent, representing 10% of the population, is made up of the elite that profiteer on ignorance. In today’s world, these oppressors are ubiquitous under a different name: the Illuminati.
Whether or not the Illuminati is a real thing is a discussion for another day, but what’s undeniable is the country’s wealth is held in the hands of a relative few. The rich want to stay rich, so they protect their positions. The system is incredibly complex, and there’s an innumerable multitude of factors at play, even when looking through a hip hop lens. There’s a lot of money in hip hop, and that money is mostly controlled by the major labels. Though a substantiated link has never been made, labels like Def Jam and Interscope, known for their gangster music, are owned by corporations like GE, a company known to be an investor in the private prison industry as well as the weapons manufacturing industry. Just a conspiracy, maybe, but on the other hand, despite the increased accessibility of music in 2013, the three majors — Universal, Sony, and Warner — remain in control of more than 80% of the market share, and they continue to promote music that poisons the minds of youth.
Musicality aside, what is it that acts like Jay Z, Drake, and Lil Wayne offer their listeners? Art can mean a lot of things, but primarily it’s about the effect a piece has on the beholder/listener. When Drake is rapping about not knowing how much money he has because he has so much and perpetually popping bottles in the club, he’s able to paint an image and capture feelings that people want. Art is, after all, a form of entertainment, and these mega rap stars allow their fans to vicariously live their lavish lifestyles. Drake is the epitome of success, Lil Wayne is the bad-boy that has done what he wants his entire life, and Jay Z… Well, Jay Z’s fortune is approaching the half a billion mark. The average person wants their lifestyles, but they don’t have the awareness to understand they are in just as much control over their lives as their favorite rap star, so the next best thing is to live it through artists who are.
Clearly, material wealth is seen as the escape hatch from a life of systematic dreariness: high school, college, and that 9-5. This is life? Each step taken is one step towards the white light. Well, responsibilities and job security dictate this life, but at least there’s Lil Wayne, Drake, and Jay Z living free from societal binds. Sipping codeine, popping bottles, and fucking model bitches… decadence, hedonism, and rampant materialism… quantitatively, these criteria are the solution to the consumerism function. Why take the risk to seek this out for yourself when you can just cop a glimpse into the life by buying Drake’s latest single on iTunes?
Normally, I’d just say ‘to each their own’ — Drake, Lil Wayne, and Jay Z are excelling at their positions, and once upon a time they were all really good rappers, so why expend energy on the hate? Because America is fucked and promoting their inauthentic brands only enables the ones in control. I believe a main factor in human progression is the exponential leaps made in the gaps between generations. Basically, young people seeing the older people doing it wrong and being like ‘this is bullshit, we can do it better’. This is why it’s so common in our generation for it to be felt that our parents don’t understand us, because they don’t.
Likewise, the music getting the airplay is at the behest of record label executives totally out of touch with today’s socio-political climate. The general spirit is to consume what is fed to our society, no questions asked. Complacency within our reality, settling for inaction when we should be taking action. The status quo is unfortunate, but that doesn’t mean the status quo has to remain perpetual. During epochs like the Enlightenment and Renaissance, there was a general consensus to reject the arbitrary dogmatism of monarch and religion. What’s not to say a similar motivation to push ourselves further could be ignited?
Music is a visceral experience; your choice in music is a reflection of your personal disposition as well as your feelings in that moment. If, instead of promoting materialism, mainstream artists were to spread a message of positivity and progression, real change could be effected. Though the Wu-Tang legacy has been tarnished by suburban appropriation of the gangster affect, they were all about pushing truth. In Grasshopper’s article “The Ebb and Flow of a Progressive Existence,”she hit the nail right on the head when she said, “When artists spread messages that belittle women, and support the acceptance of living in a materialistic, superficial world, they forget that they are also belittling, and suppressing themselves, and the whole audience that listens to their music.”
We could do a lot better after the cultural shitshow that was the 00's, and we’re already starting to. Black Hippy, coming at it with their individual mindset a la Wu-Tang, is a reason to be excited about hip hop, and by extension our society. Kendrick Lamar is a superstar, but he’s still making damn good music, and so is everyone in the collective. And they haven’t compromised themselves, if anything they’ve become more genuine. As a generation, we have far to go, but that doesn’t mean we can’t do it. Like the great writer Ralph Ellison said, “Life is to be lived, not controlled; and humanity is won by continuing to play in face of certain defeat.”
