okay so the skinny jeans didn't work out for me so well …

Popular African-American music is not going to change, and the sooner we all get used to that the better off we’ll all be. Much of the talk is about the lack of accountability in what used to be known as hip-hop, but the dilution of African-American music is a phenomenon that has been occurring across the board at least since the eighties. Much of what has occurred bears similarities to what has occurred in Hollywood as the result of the first Blockbuster movies like Jaws that broke all types of sales and ticket barriers.

With us this meant Micheal Jackson, and too much of a good thing. In the beginning Micheal was “hungry” as an artist, as we like to say, to the uninitiated that meant that he was willing to do whatever it took to sell a record. But by the time his fourth record came out Micheal was on more of an artistic bent and began to talk about his own politics, such as racial politics and sociopolitical issues in general. It was in truth his seventh record, as his first three were largely under the radar, but sort of highlighted where music was going to go in general. On the one hand he shouldn’t have to digress to talking about what pop artists usually talk about because quite honestly he didn’t need the money or the fame at this point, had albums which continued to sell less than the last one though arguably he continued to set and break new records, and was weird from the outset and was perhaps just now comfortable expressing those eccentricities to the rest of the world.

A lot of good and bad came out of this; had it not been for that hunger to differentiate himself from his family Thriller may have never broke any records, MTV still may not have been showing videos from Black artists (though arguably Lionel Richie had some videos in rotation) and Black artists may have never been taken seriously, because up until then there were no real crossover artists. Blacks listened to their artists and Whites listened to theirs, but there were few artists that everyone just liked across the board, Micheal changed all of that. But there is a lot to say for the status quo. Micheal Jackson and Prince were able to bring a unique take on popular music because they were in a decade that was very accepting and open to different sounds. It was a very experimental time in general, and you could get away with stuff that you couldn’t in other decades.

In spite of the popularity of those artists though Black music underwent some interesting changes. Hip-hop became popular and was the sound of the inner city. Yet as different as hip-hop was at that time a lot remained the same and that was the idea of the way that music should sound like, as opposed to the way in which it could sound. Artists that tried to be different and often found mainstream success were universally panned in the African-American community. No one really wanted to admit to having listened to anything the likes of MC Hammer or P.M. Dawn. There were plenty of artists that were different that found mainstream appeal, such as De La Soul, Digable Planets and Arrested Development.

The honest truth is that hip-hop did not have a formula and was still experimental for the most part, which made it easier for audiences to tolerate artists talking in riddles or about concepts that weren’t as accessible as those of artists today. It was okay to listen to a group like K.M.D., but by the late nineties much of that had changed. Artists saw how immensely popular Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls was, and never quite graduated beyond that point. We had the whole Ja Rule thing, who may have found his roots in artists Mic Geronimo and groups like The Lost Boyz, and that was okay to a point.

By the time 50 Cent had sold his story to whoever was willing to listen to why he had such an issue with Ja Rule the tide had already changed. Music journalists everywhere were proclaiming that hip-hop was dead, not saying it in quite those words but if you were to read inbetween the lines that was more or less the point that was being put across. That attitude had been in place ever since the late nineties, so when Nas said it in 2006 it came as a surprise to no one, or did it? Perhaps for those who didn’t really follow the magazines, op-ed columns, or editorials it was.

Artists came out of the woodwork explaining why hip-hop was not dead and that in fact the idea of what hip-hop was had changed with their generation. Was Nas talking about mainstream hip-hop, what was being played on top 40 radio? Was he saying that real hip-hop was in essence on par with his own talent, of which we haven’t heard any mainstream artists come anywhere close to him since Tupac and Biggie Smalls? Remember that Nas came about in a time where it wasn’t about beats, where storytelling and true wordplay was what people listened to hip-hop for.

Where one door closes another one opens. Lil’ Wayne used the opportunity to bring himself into the spotlight and gain more mainstream exposure, yet Wayne isn’t necessarily interested in old antiquated ideas of what hip-hop should be. Wayne is prone to pick up a guitar and start playing it for no apparent reason, or to put out a record like “Lollipop” that isn’t really hip-hop nor isn’t really club music either. In fact that record isn’t really anything we traditionally associate with music. Much of Wayne’s wordplay sounds like ideas that come to him in a stream of consciousness as opposed to anything that was written down on paper. Much of it seems to come from a place where he may not necessarily be in the right frame of mind, perhaps some of that Purple Drank or some other mind altering experience.

Whenever something different does come along, such as Common’s various albums, the new Kanye West album, Jennifer Hudson recording a song that is more Country than R & B, Beyonce with a song that sounds like a strange cross between grunge and alternative rock, or even Outkast, who was different ever since Atliens, the work is either universally panned or admired, yet curiously never fully understood. It isn’t always the point of music to be about beats and readily accessible, and when artists with a few successful pop records try to be different they have to hear about it. Sometimes from journalists, but often from other artists that aren’t trying to be different themselves, and hate the fact of another artist being different experiencing any success. We’re too ignorant to really sit down and experience music the way those that used to listen to soul and jazz music do; music is a reflection of our gettin’ money fast paced life where we continue to live hand to mouth and don’t take care of ourselves properly and end up in the hospital at a young age with high blood pressure. It has to satisfy us like yesterday, truth is there are only so many beats, so many unique sounds, so many time signatures, so many samples, before you start to repeat yourself. The music will inevitably grow beyond those few bars and turn into more of a composition than a repetitive knee jerk experience. Every time someone begins to understand this someone else trying to get ahead finds some sort of gimmick to take us back 20 years and we’re back to the mindlessness of it all over again.

The projects (of artists trying to be different) only get mainstream radio airplay when a “beat” can be found in them and there is something catchy about them. But other artists, groups like say Little Brother for instance simply do not get the support that they need, and tend to fade into the night. BET did not want to give Little Brother a chance, basically stating that it wasn’t dumb enough for their 106 and Park crowd. This is the same media that can easily get behind Nas, conveniently rejecting the fact that intelligent hip-hop has always been with us and never left. What about The Roots, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, M.O.P., Wu Tang Clan, Killarmy, 9th Wonder, Sunz of Man, every single one of the The Nation of Gods and Earths artists, the whole New School movement, the list goes on and on. These days we’re told that Hipster rap is different and about imitation and the novelty of the eighties, but few talk about the fact that it is in part, a good thing, not to have rap built off of gangster bravado, machismo, and other empty ideas about masculinity or femininity.

The industries and establishment that are supposed to be in charge of keeping that real hip-hop alive are the ones that are truly destroying it by not doing what they can to promote artists that try to get Black people to think for a change which is all that hip-hop was ever really about in the first place. The irony of which is that your White friends probably listen to these artists when you’re not; the same ones that rode around hanging onto everyone of Eminem’s verses listen to these artists. In fact a lot of these groups that have continued to represent true and real hip-hop aren’t Black, and will never get that promotion and recognition because of the delicacies of the politics of doing so when the industry does. Even more Elvis theories, more drama. Quite honestly at this point if we were to let a third genre of music be stolen from us we have no one else to blame but ourselves given what happened to Jazz and Rock and Roll, the latter of which I don’t even think we had a whole lot of control over.

You’ll probably say that those groups aren’t necessarily any better or worse so why should you listen to them, and I really can’t argue with you there. But any true fan of hip-hop has to listen to, or I would at least would think want to take into serious consideration, Immortal Technique, if you want to consider a rapper who isn’t African-American, who has held it down at least since 2000. He’s one of those artists that can write a verse that brags about having issues with Aryans while Blacks have issues with Niggers, and can get away with it because people respect his intelligence; in fact I’m still not sure if I should take issue with him or not having said that. He brings into question what it means to be an American, not someone who is Black or White, but an American, trying to live in a country in which the layman’s definition of an American and the definition of those who are truly in power of being an American is at odds with each other, and that says a lot.

Why do I have to hit the mix tape circuit to hear the real hip-hop that I used to hear on the radio before the top 40 days in the 1980s? Why do I have to go to YouTube of all places and find it conveniently tucked inbetween the most inane videos in HD? Why am I finding it in Smack videos hearing about mainstream artists beef? Mainstream rap music will never change because this industry is going to do everything it can to silence the true artists and force them into obscurity. Until listeners stand up and refuse to continue to be programmed by that top 40 radio, they’ll never change as well …