Hip-Hop 50 Years Later: A Cancer Or A Revolution?
ART is a category the LORD has yet to define. Art is understood through examples, because art is as inexhaustible as air and unending as the flow of a river. It has no end, it only begins anew like seasons. Humans are addicted to the mental, physical, and emotional pulls of creativity. Humans restlessly create art. Art binds us to engage with it, because when we create and relish in creation we fulfill part of what it means to be created in the image of the living God (Gen. 1). Within our bosoms, we have the essence of rhyme and flavor, that’s how the Black community artfully birthed Hip-Hop. It was destiny.
After walking this Earth for 50 years, Hip-Hop wears the gold chain of immunity as it has molded to a definition which smothered the birth of the Black Revolution and shamed its ancestors. We’ve only noticed the change in Hip-Hop’s quality, rather than the change in Hip-Hop’s purpose. Is Hip-Hop doing what it was intended to do? Like any scientist or doctor or student we must examine this art form. And we can only do so, by remembering Hip-Hop’s start.
We’ve only noticed the change in Hip-Hop’s quality, rather than the change in Hip-Hop’s purpose.
The start of a thing is the intended desire, however, sin, in the Christian faith, corrupts everything with the rapidity of the wind (Rom. 6). (Like Adam—the first human—the start of a thing is always the purest form.) Music has always been the primary form of worship. Worship in Heaven, biblically speaking, is educational and alters the life of its listener… permanently (Isa. 6). Music that strays from this goal should be approached cautiously like walking without light. Therefore, wherever music is found its blueprint is worship. Sin has redirected the musician’s worship to the temporal and perishable. It satisfies neither singer nor listener for it is enjoyed by the carnal and vain mind.
Did we forget that Hip-Hop’s first intent was to educate and liberate? The change was subtle and hidden like the sound of a shadow because we all have been hypnotized by the persuasive beats and rhymes. The most sacred art form within the Black community was stripped of its severity and of everything worth attention in it.
The most sacred art form within the Black community was stripped of its severity and of everything worth attention in it.
Now turn the record over and play the other side and you must consider the personalities who carry these rhymes. They have become godlike, and invite themselves into our communities and psyches. We trusted the founders to safeguard Hip-Hop, just as we trusted our parents to love us. But they snaked us for the highest bidder and sent generations down a descending spiral of destruction. In other words, Hip-Hop’s commodification ruined this art form. Art should never be sold. Some things have no value like a beautiful memory or life itself. Education should always be free. Hip-Hop should have remained a priceless gem the Black community cherished and protected like women and children. Eldridge Cleaver agrees when he says, “Black people have been tricked again and again, sold out at every turn by misleaders.” Now, Hip-Hop is unrecognizable. How can any nutritious value come from something that has been genetically modified into edible poison?
Art should never be sold, for to price it, makes it lose its value altogether.
The Black community created Hip-Hop. Its goal was to teach generations history and dignity, to give the Black existence meaning. Hip-Hop was created to inspire, liberate, teach, and give language to the many emotions we experience day to day. Music was the LORD’s gift to us, to assist us as we conquer the world. It was a navigational tool, our North Star. It was how Blacks gained organizational unity and communicated with their brothers and allies around the world, on an international basis. That is why Hip-Hop has spread over the Earth like the wind. Europe, India, Asia, and Africa know more of Tupac’s lyrics than of Martin Luther King’s speeches. Nonetheless, the question that must be considered is: Is Hip-Hop red and white blood cells or is it a carcinogen to human development?
“When the LORD created man, He gave him Music as a language different from all other languages.”
