The Pioneers Never Left Us!

When I said last post that I didn't know what had happened to the generation that started this whole Hip-Hop shit, I came away feeling, after watching a NY1 news report yesterday, that I can always count on some of them to do right by this whole way of life. But I still needed to return and explain/expand my position on the subject that I only brushed lightly upon.

I saw this first on TV, then went to their website:
Hip-Hop Heads To The Smithsonian Museum

And you know (living in NYC) I gotta hit up the Times:
Smithsonian's Doors Open to a Hip-Hop Beat

What I said about the first Hip-Hop generation (in the general) still goes. I just wanted to make sure that post didn't come off as some kind of blanket statement addressed to everyone single person. Of course we still have many individuals who very much remain involved in the culture they live. But how many of them, for example, don't work in the industry? Or how many aren't members of the Zulu Nation? I wish I could sit down with Herc or Flash or Bambaataa or Russell and ask them what became of their social contemporaries. Or maybe I can find a site that talks about this issue or a message board where I can ask.

For a long time now I couldn't help but notice the absence of this generation who were there from the start. They grew Hip-hop. But it's not them I see. It's not them I hear. It's these young cats whose faces I see more than, and voices I hear over, their predecessors. The youth molding this culture have disregarded what their elders have to offer. Let's not forget whose hands Hip-Hop currently lie in: some of these hands prove incapable. Some hands are capable but not truly aware of their true potential. These hands have fallen short of nurturing the elements of the culture along with diversity in the music.

So that leaves us with our elders still with us today. As great and as many of them as they are, many more than them have gone MIA. The ones left make me think about that analogy of the guy scaling a dam trying to seal off one leak after another using no more than their arms & legs & chewing gum. Russell & Co. continue to make contributions, but what they do struggle against a windstorm of manipulation by more people that understand, or care for, very little. The elders are outnumbered by those in power and all among us in the public who continue to buy garbage.

I understand people who want to get & stay rich & in power. They are black and white. They are old-man (and woman) record execs and young kids from the streets who dream about nothing but the mansion and the yacht. It's unfortunate that they hold the reins. THEM I understand. But what about the buying public? THEM I don't understand as much. Will they go along so willingly with how these fat cats define Hip-Hop? Will they listen to whatever these people tell them to listen to? If most of us have excepted today that Jen Lopez and Beyonce are Hip-Hop (which we have) when these ladies most certainly are NOT... will the fat cats define Hip-Hop as Country tomorrow and the rest of us will just go along with it? Are we THAT stupid?

I think so. And why not? We reelected Bush. People are stupid by nature, but this holds true more for us overweight, soap-watching, celebrity starved Americans. But I'm leaving the subject of stupidity for a future post.