Through The Telescope: Forgetting History?

Hip Hop has always been playing in my household, even in my youngest days I remember the classic ‘93 Till Infinity’ playing through-out my living room, or the classic ‘New York State of Mind’ track from Nas. However, I only thoroughly delved into Hip Hop (and its history) around 2004 (I’m still a youngin’). After I heard about KRS-One and the confrontation between him and Nelly I recall seeing mention of his ‘beef’ with Marley Marl and the Juice Crew; at this point I had no idea who the Juice Crew were, so I headed over to Google and searched with those tags in mind. Eventually, I came across a video in which KRS explained the ordeal and I slowly became fascinated with Hip Hop’s history. Essentially, from that point on I have been “studying” Hip Hop’s history and delving into classics that I either never heard as a child, or wanted to listen to for nostalgia sake; As it stands, I consider myself a “new-school” listener as I never grew up with the earliest Hip Hop music, but I felt that I owed it to this Art that I’ve fallen in love with, to understand it’s history. This is something that I feel a lot of new-school listeners disregard, and due to mainstreams ‘hot 100′ approach even more listeners have a lack of respect for it’s roots.

Before I get someone saying: “We don’t all have to know EVERY component to Hip Hop’s history like you do”, I want to concur. While I do not expect everyone to have a thorough knowledge base of its roots, I feel there should be some generalized regard towards them. There are several new-school listeners I know who have the mentality that “If it’s not on the billboards anymore, then it’s on my playlist’. Something I find to be completely ridiculous. I’ve also came across people who’ve had a more ‘hip-hop’ based sense of the culture, yet disregard the key figures (Tupac and Biggie only count to a degree).

The thing I find most depressing is that many people are fixated on the social aspect of Hip Hop; what do I mean by this statement? If something is accepted socially in terms of hip hop music, it’s considered valid in their mindsets as “listenable” - I would like to stop my analyzation for a second to point out that I don’t believe everyones hip hop tastes are like this, BUT I do feel I’m covering enough ground in this context with that statement. Sometime last year I was having a conversation with a friend of mine, and we got on the topic of who I consider to be the greatest “rappers”. I quickly named Kool G Rap, Nas, KRS One, Rakim and a few others. Out of the names I had dropped, this person only knew of Nas and went on to mock me for listening to “no-name artists”. Now, two things that made me particularly angry about this instance:

1. This person considered himself a fan of Hip Hop, yet mocked me for being a fan of classic artists; this is a clear example of someone who’s fixated on the social aspects of hip hop, he would only listen to what was considered “hot”.

2. Without those artists listed, he wouldn’t have the artists he’s listening to now.

Keep in mind, this isn’t the first time I was “treated” to such responses. To keep this clear, I consider those type of hip hop fans in a different category, I think the term “Hip-Pop” is suitable. Now, not everything they listen to fall under this category, but the majority of their tastes pertain to the pop-oriented hits that are generally in the fore-front of mainstream hip hop.

On the other spectrum, there is the artist who listens to a more hardcore array of Biggie Smalls and Tupac, and probably Big L and Pun. Comically, I’m just stereo-typing as I know they have more selection but they generally range from the G-Funk era and up. They consider themselves “huge” hip hop heads, yet lack any idea of the key figures. Before I continue this section of the article, I want to speak a blasphemy in terms of Hip Hops “social code”. I consider artists like Biggie Smalls and Tupac influential to a degree, and while both became largely successful no one seems to realize that they were not the best, and that Tupacs music was gradually degrading in terms of skill near the end of his career, thus making the raving and ranting about them sound irrelevant unless someones pointing out their proper debuts and such. So in other words: highly overrated. Back to my initial points, these fans listen to on a general basis, what was hot years ago and push how ‘good’ their artists like Tupac and Biggie are and how they’re what “hip hop is”; yet they lack any general sense for artists prior to the G-Funk era, which in my opinion is very disappointing.

I’m not trying to sound like a Hip Hop Nazi, I just find it depressing how the hip hop culture has a habit of disregarding it’s roots. Hip Hop came up from “Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five” to “Boogie Down Productions” and “The Juice Crew”; yet if I were to mention those artists to the majority of people at my school who consider themselves Hip Hop heads, I’d get blank faces. In a general sense, I think the mass marketing of hip hop is the key reason in which it’s history becomes forgotten so quick. While all music genres now a days do have some aspect where it has became a pop-oriented sensation, I still feel other music genres appeal to their roots. I haven’t studied this as thoroughly as the current topic, but in a general context judging by people I’ve talked to, a Rock fan has a general sense of the key figures in that genre of music as apposed to a Hip Hop fan. Why is this? Because Hip Hop is to focused on the current trends, and has no regard for it’s prior contributions and what helped it evolve.

Please understand, I’m not writing this article in the sense of condemning those people who fit under these examples listed above, I’m trying write this in hopes of sparking more “Whys?” and “Hows?” towards the subject matter. If you’re a person reading this who falls under these ideals posted above, (and I’m most certain I will have some of these examples reading this) you owe it to yourself and your culture to try to make better sense of it and I’m most certain you will come across something you like a long the way. I think as a culture that’s surrounded by temptations of money and promotion of ignorance, it’s hard to keep the true legends in the proper light.

I know that those base examples used don’t cover everything pertaining to what I’m talking about, however it does cover what I consider the majority of listeners in that spectrum. As a culture, I find it saddening that only the hardcore recognize all of Hip Hops contributions; yet it’s something very hard to combat due to our medias focus on what’s new. Why can’t we grow with hip hop, instead of growing apart? I think in the context of this article this is a quote you hardcore Hip Hop heads should ponder, and you newer hip hop head should look into:
” Will your children know the hip hop history?
Will the songs you hate be shrouded in mystery?” - J-Live, Epilogue

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Posted by LostMoniker on September 15th, 2008 :: Filed under Through The Telescope: Hip Hop and Society
Tags :: bdp, classic hip hop, emee, furious five, grandmaster flash, hip hop, jazzy jeff, juice crew, krs one, marley marl, original, real
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