Hip Hopness

By Ryan Place

Hip-Hop vernacular has infiltrated modern discourse. As a style whose surging core is based around verbal expression, there was no way the Hip-Hop subculture could avoid entering modern word-stream. Sure, the terms and concepts have mutated over three generations, and yes, the shortsightedness of materialism and excess of groups like Cash Money Records and Three Six Mafia put the kibosh to optimism for many schemin? on the CRÈME. Nevertheless, Hip-Hop terms have squirmed their way into everyday language. Slang is essential to Hip-Hop, and as one of its main stew ingredients, one can?t rebel against the old codes without it.

Before Hip Hop degenerated into an orgy of self-indulgence, thanks to rabid flotsam the periphery swarming, Doug E. Fresh was beat-boxin? with the Fat Boys, house party favorite MC Lyte was on that ill type with, ?I rock the party that rocks the body,? the gumby fade was in full swing, and 50 Cent was watching ?David the Gnome? on Nickelodeon in his shell top Adidas.

Supposedly, the roots of Hip-Hop can be traced back to Jamaican import DJ Kool Herc, who blew up the South Bronx in the late 1970s as a break-beat DJ that could flow to music. However, the true essence of hip hop stretches back a decade earlier to that turbulent year of 1968, when LSD was to be had in abundance, when the Democratic National Convention in Chicago degenerated into savage violence, and when a little known newly formed collective called ?The Last Poets? began rappin?.

Unlike today?s hip-hopsta imposta?s (ie: Paul Wall, Mike Jones, etc.) the Last Poets were actually talented, blending narrative with background chorus and instrumentation. The message, however, remains the same: Revolution and sense of self. As contemporaries of occasional collaborator and hip hop precursor Gil Scott Heron, The Last Poets formed in East Harlem, and united in their desire to create a powerful amplifier of social criticism and black motivation.

The Last Poets invented the word ?playas? in 1968 in their song, ?Niggas Are Scared of Revolution,? and it was a word that would come into vogue some 30 years later. The Last Poets and the Watts Prophets were ahead of their time, or maybe too perfect in their role as ?consciousness liberators,? and early Wu-Tang Clan lyrics and styles reflect signs of their influence.

The impact of Wu-Tang?s seminal 1993 masterpiece ?Enter the 36 Chambers? did more to fuse hip hop elements with hardcore realities, but group harmony and the same tale of gritty living echoed throughout . With resident slang-master Raekwon the Chef, who?s album ?Only Built for Cuban Linx? dropped in 1995, and proudly boasts to having more street slang in the lyrics than any other Hip-Hop or rap oriented album in history, the Wu-Tang Clan catapulted gritty East-Coast Hip-Hop to incredible heights around the globe with new terms, great lyrics and sick beats.

After the word ?playa? was added to the Hip-Hop vocabulary by The Poets, it took 15 to thirty years to accrue such gems as shark biters, loopin? samples, droppin? science like an epileptic chemist, cheops the squishy freezepops, flowin?, freestylin?, beat-boxin?, emcee, underground, schemin? on the CREME, beef, burner, dizzles, dragon, represent, seeds, grill, dondadda chicks, diss, playing wit the Asian barbie, shields prophylactic fantastics, chew real slow like a donut bumping waldo, mad flava, eat em alive, get brolic, spittin?, etc. The list is vast, varied, and always evolving.

Hip-Hops original anti-establishment message was spit in slang, and the later focus on status symbols, such as ice, rides, women, clothes, hit hard. The conformity advocated by contemporary artists like 50 Cent, Paul Wall, and Mike Jones has betrayed the true essence of Hip-Hop. Many consider these bezzled out fellows to be more hardcore rap, but traces of old school can be found between the gingivitis infection and after-market custom additions to 64 Impala?s and 79 AMC Pacers.

Hip-Hop birthed rap and hardcore gangsta rap. MC Hammer?s baggy Z-Boz pants fell somewhere in between Arsenio Hall, gypsy Bohemian, and Pee-Wee Herman. Artists became overly occupied with cheap firearms, loose women of ill repute, copious amounts of dope, fashion that encouraged materialism, and fast souped up buggies. Lyrics began to glorify separation of selves, destruction, and deception without apology for the long-term negative effects on tormented psyches.

The line of demarcation between rap and Hip-Hop is blurred. Fin to rewind the track, take it back to Kurtis Blow, Big Daddy Kane, Kool G Rap, Afrikaa Bambaataa, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Marly Marl?s Juice Crew are some of the true pioneers Hip-Hop, along with even older influences like early seventies blaxploitation film star and party record favorite Rudy Ray Moore, who created rappin? alter-ego ?Dolemite? back in 1972.

The shift from early Detroit Hip-Hop like Doc Chill, Esham, Mercilous Emir, to later-artists such as J Dilla, Invincible, Big Herk, Tone Tone Henderson, Street Lordz, and Obie Trice is less noticeable since our area has effectively fused a combination of styles, but ultimately, rap replaced Hip-Hop as the more dominant sound.

Rap stole the spotlight, and classic Hip-Hop artists like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul. Run DMC, LL Cool J, Beastie Boys, and many others began finding their message and styles to be outdated and played out. Soft lyrics grew more raw, gritty, and carefree, and eighties magic seemed to be replaced by gun-toting tatted-up lunatics heeding their self-destructive tendencies. Tupac?s ?Thug Life? philosophy of being married for life like a Catholic to the ?game? glorified savage violence in the tradition of NWA, Dr Dre, and Snoop Dogg.

Back when Jay-Z used to be Sean Carter, Hip-Hop had gone completely mainstream, which was inevitable due to its rabid popularity. Shortly thereafter, sayings like ?fo shizzle,? ?hit me on the hip playboy,? ?hittin licks, hittin switches all day baby pop,? ?c?mon naw give Blind Timothy a Mean Daniel,? ?Desert Eagle wit the hollow points tucked beneath lackalacka moomoo,? ?off the chain,? and ?merk out wit it? became more and more common with many a white boy getting his face caved in at lunchtime for trying to be down by spittin? E-40 lines. Hip hop freed corny white boys, if only in their minds, from the prison of their skins, and it was a unifying force that brought people of different background and color together.

Hip-Hop is quintessentially an American invention. Song blasts from dilapidated housing projects, such as Queensbridge, Marcy, Killa Hills 10304, Stapleton, Brewster-Douglas, and the crowded slums of NYC, LA, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, SanFran?s Bay Area, DC, Miami, Philly, and East St Louis, caused Hip-Hop to become an international phenomenon.

Having experienced the rise and fall of Hip-Hops? golden era, the downfall began with the gangsta rap of Dr Dre, Snoop Dog and Tupac Shakur and has continued to decline. Groups like Cash Money Records and Three Six Mafia have glorified greed, corruption, misogynistic attitudes, and the worst human impulses.

Record executives, paper-chasing artists, gullible, naïve, uptight, and insulated, whitebread politicians applauded the near total absorption of Hip-Hip into Material Rap. The music industry, wishing to capitalize on effects of poverty, has targeted young kids with hardcore rap, forcing it down their throats while the mass media has successfully warped people?s perspectives to classify all youth culture racket under the same ?dangerous? umbrella.

Never has conformity, materialism, the urge to be like everyone else, and the selfish disregard for others been so strong among the youth. 50 Cent and Paul Wall represent the nadir of ?music,? and are completely absorbed in the worst self-indulgent aspects of Hip-Hop offshoots without paying it the proper respect.

At the darker end of the spectrum, it seems Hip-Hop has created a fearsome personae for black people, especially young, inner-city black men, and has kept them at a tremendous disadvantage when applying for jobs, traveling beyond their ciphers, and dealing with the public in general. Thanks to years of mass media circus frenzy, Hip-Hop and rap music itself has been seen as a threat to the prevailing conventionality.

Wu-Tang Clan, RZA, Big L Corleone, Biggie, Nas, and Bahamadia were all tremendous influences, and managed to, even with unrelenting media coverage, maintain the rawness of their originality. This year, however, a significant shift has been made towards greater independence of thought and lifestyles. Music in general seems to be emerging from its nadir. Anti-commercial cats like Mos Def, Invincible, Bahamadia, and J-5 are keepin? Hip-Hop alive. Although it spikes in popularity, many feel the surging waves of Hip-Hop are receding as we evolve into new styles of music, but it will never fully perish.