Is Hip-Hop Really Dead?
By
By DaveyD , San Jose Mercury News
Recording executives are more interested
in turning a quick buck than nurturing
rap culture -- and they are behind the
apparent demise of hip-hop music.
Hip-hop icon Nas made the provocative
statement, "Hip-hop is dead,'' in
September and set off a firestorm of
controversy. It was intensified by the
January release of his album bearing the
same title.
Many questioned why Nas would say
hip-hop -- a worldwide phenomenon that
has generated billions of dollars --
could be "dead.'' After all, more
hip-hop albums are being released then
ever before, and the music's influence
extends to movies, corporate marketing
and theater. That it's dead seems absurd
-- until you realize Nas was looking
beneath the surface.
He was speaking of the corporate side of
the music and the mentality of
executives more interested in turning a
quick buck than nurturing rap culture.
Nas realized sex, violence and bling, as
themes for the music, had pretty much
run their course. Album sales had
plummeted, and ratings at hip-hop radio
stations in New York, Los Angeles and
elsewhere had hit all-time lows.
A number of people, including this
writer, also had spoken out about
mediocre product coming from some of the
genre's biggest stars. Yet such talk was
rebuffed by so-called industry experts,
who blamed digital downloading and
satellite radio.
We critics, however, were vindicated by
a study published earlier this year by
the University of Chicago. Data from the
"Black Youth Project'' indicated that
while 58 percent of blacks between ages
15 and 25 listen to hip-hop daily, most
are dissatisfied with it. They find the
subject matter is too violent, and women
too often portrayed in offensive ways.
Such feelings hint at a dirty little
secret of the music business: Blacks are
used largely to validate musical themes
being marketed to the white mainstream.
In other words, while 90 percent of
commercial rap artists on TV and radio
are black, the target audience lies
outside the black community.
Paul Porter, a longtime industry veteran
and former music programmer at BET and
Radio One, is now with the watchdog
organization Industryears.com. He says
the University of Chicago findings offer
proof positive that commercial hip-hop
has become the ultimate minstrel show,
and rap artists are pushed by the
industry to remain perpetual adolescents.
As a result, we watch Diddy, Cam'ron,
DMX and others brag about wealth and
throw bills at a camera while
bikini-clad women gyrate in the
background. Should these artists attempt
to break out of the mold, they'd risk
having their work questioned by record
and radio executives.
In our conversation, Porter also pointed
to something more sinister: payola. He
claimed hip-hop is dead only because
payola is rampant at labels intent on
investing in songs with sexual and
violent themes.
During a separate conversation,
Questlove of the Roots supported
Porter's allegation with his own story
about the process behind the group's
Grammy-winning hit with Erykah Badu,
"You Got Me.'' He said the Roots had to
pony up close to "a million dollars'' to
a middle man who "worked his magic'' at
radio stations.
Initially, the overtly positive song had
been rejected, he explained, so palms
were greased with the promise that key
stations countrywide would get hot
"summer jam'' concert acts in exchange
for airplay. According to Questlove,
more than $1 million in cash and
resources were eventually laid out for
the success of that single song.
In the documentary "Hip Hop: Beyond
Beats and Rhymes,'' shown recently on
the PBS series "Independent Lens,''
filmmaker Byron Hurt confronts Stephen
Hill, BET's senior vice president for
programming, to ask why the cable
network plays so many videos with
misogynist and otherwise degrading
themes. The fortysomething Hill walks
away without answering. This is the same
executive who refused to broadcast
videos by the group Little Brother,
because he considered their material
"too intelligent'' for the BET audience.
With thinking like that, no wonder
commercial hip-hop appears dead. It's
the ideas of the gatekeepers that are dead.
