Hiphop Turns 30: Whatcha celebratin' for?

The Village Voice ^ | January 4, 2004 | Greg Tate

[billorites]

Now it's the same old song
But with a different meaning
Since you been gone

[iconoclast]

Hiphop is the soul of a whole people, openly on display for all to see.

What YOU say?

If true, I say may God have mercy on your souls.

[Lazamataz]

Yes hiphop, whose stirring strains will be heard a hundred years from now when Duke Ellington has long been forgotten.

I read a great Science Fiction short story set 1000 years in the future, in which the heroine, while piloting her spacecraft, decided to play a little classical music -- consisting of a mix of songs from Beethovan, Mick Jagger, and Ice Cube.

[DustyMoment]

Yes, the hiphop culture has much to celebrate. It is the leading cause of the dumbing down of the younger generations. It's founders hould be proud that they have had such a devastating effect on society.

I don't think that the bubonic plague was as devastating as hiphop.

Celebrate away.

[kdmhcdcfld]

Yep...

As I once heard Gregg Allman say, "The 'C' in rap is silent."

[DustyMoment]

Hiphop is the soul of a whole people, openly on display for all to see. Some say it confirm stereotypes. Some don't. What YOU say?

Bill Cosby has a great line about cocaine. He asked what was so great about cocaine? The answer he got was "it enhances your personality". "Yeah," he replies, "but, what if you're an a$$hole?"

The point is that just because something is exists doesn't make it great. AIDS exists, but it isn't great. Hiphop exists to solicit and seduce the most ignorant among us by appealing to man's basest instincts.

Long ago, our ancestors created art, music, laws, religion and philosophy to provide us with stepping stones to improve ourselves so that we can rise above our basest instincts. Compare and contrast hiphop to, say, Grofe's Grand Canyon Suite or virtually anything by Irving Berlin or George Gershwin.

You simply can't. Grofe, Berlin and Gershwin exist today as classics because their music is timeless. Hiphop is already a dying "art form" (and I use that term EXTREMELY loosely) and may count itself lucky to see its 40th anniversary. The hate, violence and denigration of women or humans in general, simply isn't a timeless message. It is time-stamped and about to expire.

[AmericanChef]

Shouldn't that be, "Watcha celebratin for, **ckin' bi*ch?"

[StAnDeliver]

Rap's jump the shark moment, spinning on its head...