Hip-Hop: From The Golden Ages To Jiggyness
Jun 02 '02
The Bottom Line -
"Now Let Me Take A Trip Down Memory Lane"
Back in the day, Hip-Hop was an unselected art form that nobody wanted. From the days of the Sugar Hill Gang, Eric B. & Rakim, Public Enemy and Run-DMC, Hip-Hop was not yet excepted as an actual form of music. People considered the lack of singing and new-age sound to be a blow to modern society, as it seemed it was the proverbial Spike Lee of Hip-Hop. It had no respect for what it said, nor did it have any care as to what people said. Kurtis Blow, one of the art form’s founders was an aggressive, Old School braggadicious emcee that simply delved deep into battle raps and bragging about his skills on the mic. Many critics and people alike didn't consider this anything people would buy into, in this they were right.
But that's what makes Hip-Hop such an exhilarating thing, or at least that's what Hip-Hop used to stand for. Nobody played Elvis Presley roles and tried to get the girls to swoon over them, they were gritty and grimy artists who mostly told you what was on their minds. For example, Public Enemy, for lack of a better word, couldn't give a fuck about what anyone thought. That was part of Hip-Hop's beauty, it simply didn't care. Much like NWA, which later came into the scene in 1987 with the then unknown style that would later be called Gangsta. Once again, something nobody liked, but brutal honesty was something underground heads could relate to.
As well, anyone who considers them a Hip-Hop fan should know that one of Hip-Hop's underground founders, KRS-One, was once part of New York's roots into the socially conscious, often street poetic subject matter that nearly anyone living in this world from 1986 and up should know about. This, once again, is made this genre so unique; it was all from the heart. No artist had a record label or a form of management hovering over them, trying to get them to convert to Pop acts and make money for them. This is because nobody took the Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow or even LL Cool J seriously at the time. These were people who thought they were making music, when to the many critics and nay sayers were laughing at them for just talking with a drum beat and rhyming words. Little could these people see.
It wasn’t about just rhyming over a drum beat, it was self-expression. These artists told you how they felt about what they were saying, how great they were on the mic or just how many problems and/or illusions that are shrouding the version into seeing the real truths of reality. Not many could understand this due to this fast, slang-filled version of lyricism. Everyone was used to guitars or instruments of any sort with light singing in the foreground to propel actual emotion and producer-written lyrics that weren't even from the heart. This is what separated emcees from singers.
That was then, however, when emcees were emcee, not rappers, or entertainers, when there were messages to be heard, not money to be made.
"Fuck A School Lecture"
We soon had a time on our hands when artists no longer battle rapped for respect on Yo! MTV Rap's or hearing classic albums like MC Shan VS. KRS-One that had two supreme lyricists vying for the title as to who was the best. These were the Golden Ages, when respect was everything and when MC didn't mean Mis-Continued. Sadly enough, we were experiencing a time when slang-filled, profanity-laced, vile, 40-drinking wanna-be "Gangsta's" were the new sensation. Lyrical prowess made way for more commercial production that dropped the low-rent elements of Public Enemy and Big Daddy Kane and focused on mainstream appeal and acceptance.
Thanks to the completely non-lyrical attempts at rapping by famed Dr. Dre's "classic" The Chronic, nobody cared about respect, every rapper around was no drinking 40's, being a player of some sort, calling women hoes, misogyny ensued, as did the fables of gang violence. It was sad that such a great art form reduced to commercialism and the lowest common denominator: violence. Profanity was also a big thing now as artists like MC Eiht and Tha Dogg Pound never let up on it. As well, we were missing the skills that made an emcee an emcee, not a rapper.
These were glaring problems with the genre and, sadly, this is the version of it that they accepted. It's strange that social and political consciousness were generally ignored where as violence and profanity were accepted as a real art form. It shows the true focus of artists and critics. With this new age of Hip-Hop came many changes to the production, subject matter and even lyrics themselves. On top of the constant synthesizer and simple arrangements that were only there to shift your attention away from the bad lyrics, we had that as well. Artists no longer cared about how or what they wrote, as long as it could get an album out and sell it.
Much like the artists of today, the rhymes were generally bad and just used words that rhymed to do just that; get it to rhyme. No matter the quality or the inventiveness that was absent, we were now introduced to a simple theory: Beats first, rhymes later. As an example, here's a sample of the form of lyricism I would like to call the "question rhyme" in which the artist uses a word that sounds more like they're rhyming with a question to get the flow and lyrics down just to have it rhyme. "Things done changed but it's alright/Remember they used to thump but now they blast, right?" See what I mean, there's no originality. It's just written that way to get it to rhyme. What makes this worse is that alright and right have the same root word, therefore not even qualifying as a new rhyme.
This was, arguably, the most popular form of Hip-Hop to be heard. It had what suburban white boy's who thought they were "gangtas" wanted. Production that was glossed over and head-noddable rather than lyrics you had to decipher and get an actual message out of. This Gangsta Rap legacy would have a short lifespan as its popularity only lasted around four years roughly. 1992 up to the year of 1996 were considered by many four watered down years that would later give way to many sell-out artists, flossing, commercialization and generally watered down subject matter and jiggy production that would introduce us to P. Diddy, Jay-Z, Master P, Juvenile, etc...
"Fuck Rap Is Real"
We have reached the age of jiggyness. We no longer have the mainstream consisting of poets, political leaders and street dwellers. We have gangstas, kingpins and one-man jewelry stores. Interpret everything that I've said about Gangsta Rap above and take away any revelations that may have come from that, downgrade it about three-hundred percent and you have what's now called Rap, not Hip-Hop. We have the constant jiggy beats and meaningless rambling that, sadly, many buy into.
As much respect as I have for the genre of Hip-Hop, it was never about the money at first, just self expression. This all disappeared with the reliance on producers rather than the emcee himself. There was no longer a need for originality or lyricism, all you need now is a catchy beat, a hook that will stick in the head of the listener and you have a top selling album. With this money making technique, artists from Nas, Jay-Z all the way to Q-Tip have sold-out to this theory. Sadly enough, we're seeing new artists everyday who aren't selling-out and are just adapting to the only thing they know. Hip-Hop has seemingly gone back hundreds of years and is seemingly still going back.
“There’s Mad Talented Cats Underground”
There’s one thing that us Hip-Hop heads can depend on, however, which is the underground. No longer do we have to suffer through meaningless rambling about wealth, woman, etc… We now have a sub-genre that not only gives us the true meaning of the word “emcee” but provides the listeners who enjoy the expressional and educational merits of the art form, as well as the fierce battle rap’s that so many emcees would use to prove their worth back in the day. The underground is more of a proverbial respiratory section of Hip-Hop rather than the blackened lungs of the mainstream. There isn’t any film to be head in this particular sub-genre, just the pureness that was once heard in the Golden Ages of Hip-Hop so long ago.
Artists keeping the true Hip-Hop spirit alive are in abundance, but are extremely out of reach of those who generally don’t look for them. The slept on Unspoken Heard, Aceyalone, Canibus, Ras Kass, KRS-One, Killah Priest and Common among others seem to be the glue holding everything together. No matter if you hate the mainstream and have decided that Hip-Hop is nothing more than fake thugs and rappers who consistently wear jewelry and consider themselves artists, the underground the exact opposite. These artists feel as though they’re poets who are simply telling you how they feel, not telling you how they are pioneers which, coincidentally, wanna-be’s like Jay-Z and Eminem are consistently doing.
Without a doubt, the underground is more of a call back to the early and mid-‘80s of Hip-Hop rather than more of the mainstream, Pop, fake thug and generally uninteresting garbage that plagues the airwaves day after day.
“Profuse Verbal Abuse To Cook Your Goose”
With this guide I hope to show all of the ignorant listeners that Hip-Hop wasn't always like this and, likewise, to the listeners of today, that Jay-Z isn't the ruler of the whole Hip-Hop universe. There was once and still is originality amongst all of the commercialism from the mainstream in the underground. With this simple little guide I would like to call “Dissolving The Commercialism,” I hope to educate the ones who read this as to what exactly Hip-Hop stands for and not the constant put-down’s and inferences made from the rappers on television and who are featured in magazines. With this, I simply hope to get out the positivity of Hip-Hop and bring back the past glory that has long been forgotten.
(Whoever can name what song title the quotes came from and the artists that said them will get absolutely nothing but recognition.)
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