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Slap-Boxing With Jesus

Why is Hip-Hop a Disposable Commodity?

It took me forever and a day to pin this guy down, but I finally managed to get duke to take a break on saving the world one student at a time to drop a few jewels. Here is Plastic Squirtguns' own Thoreauly77...

    As I sit here smoking squares, drinking Heinekens and listening to OB4CL, I lament the state of current commercial hip-hop. So why is current commercial hip-hop (er, rap music) so fucking bad? Simply put, the masses are completely inundated with news of the terrible: suicide bombers kill 13 in Baghdad; Virginia Tech massacre; no clear plan (still) to get our soldiers out of Iraq and Afghanistan; Darfur. These images are so prevalent (particularly to those of us who spend a lot of time on the internet), that it is no wonder that some people would rather do the motorcycle while they are pop-lock-and dropping it. By all means, get your eagle on, but creating and supporting music with no meaning is, in my opinion, not a viable alternative to being a  pro-active consumer who chooses not to support bullshit. Give this some thought: when did commercial hip-hop become so blatantly and blissfully ignorant? When we let it of course. When did we let it? When did we give up?

    We gave up right around October 7th, 2001, shortly after the attacks on the World Trade Center. This obviously wasn’t simply a collective decision to close our eyes to what was happening, and was most certainly part of a music industry coup that was directed toward the overthrow of our collective give-a-shit-level. For six very long years we have seen the music we love become a shallow caricature of itself, and why? Because we have let it. No one wants to think about how completely fucked we are as a nation. The CNN of the streets has turned into The Mississippi Riverboat Revue (do your homework).

    Even so, we have amongst us a few artists that still give a shit, namely Kweli, whose “Eardrum” is a refreshing return to passionate hip-hop. For those of you out there that don’t automatically default to the whole “fuck that backpack shit”, I would also suggest checking out “None Shall Pass” by Aesop Rock, which is surprisingly accessible considering his dense and coded word-play. Any other suggestions for some new stuff?

    Remember, hip-hop is an artform and a culture, not a commodity, and just as the artists should be stepping it up and giving the form the respect it deserves, in turn we should also respect the artist. Go out and cop the albums! Buy a shirt! Get out of your mom’s basement and go see a show! The state of the world is fucked, yes, but walking it out won’t do shit!

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