5/10 i really don't mind if your doing well or not it doesn't affect my life

an insight on hip hop:
[quote=Immortal Technique]
Date: 03/07/07
Title: Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop
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Gangsta Rap is Hip Hop by Immortal Technique

The connection between Revolution and Gangsta Rap is not only unquestionable in my mind but also historically speaking. So much so that I'm forced to begin to elaborate on it now as I go to more prisons, juvenile centers and schools to talk with young people with uncertain futures about the industry. They ask me about the messages and images in the music. They ask about the origins of this street sound that seems to define what they see as their life and destiny...

It is therefore my duty to remind them the way I must remind myself and all of you that even though I'm in my twenties, I am old enough to remember being in grade school and hearing the Ice Cube albums, Public Enemy, NWA, The Geto Boyz, Ice-T, and others. They, and those behind the scenes at the time, created projects that defined their prospective region for their hard-core sound but much more so for their rebellious nature, storytelling and political discourse. Just like most of our originators (RUN DMC didn't start Hip Hop) Schoolly D is often overlooked as the person who in the mid 1980's actually carved a niche and started to include these hardcore gangsta phrases into his music. But the expansion of the type of sound he made and the vivid imagery of the streets created by others such as Melle Mel helped the 80's and early 90's Hip Hop Artists take these building block concepts and become master masons of words. I personally always loved it-- curses, crazy concepts and all but I could see how some people who are not familiar with the culture of Hip hop could be apprehensive. They are filled with vulgarity, they're disrespectful to women, and they are horribly violent, but tell me isn't Revolution sometimes the same way? It's not what wee would like it to be, because now more than ever it is romanticized and idealized. But even for the most just-cause there are innocent people that are killed or imprisoned and the theater of war always has a rape scene regardless of how beautiful the victory parade is weeks or year's later celebrating newfound freedom.

So please don't feed me Mythology and liberal bullchocolate about the nature of Revolution. It is often bloody and it's not always a surgical strike fueled by the political ego of a military coup. Many times it is done by the people themselves. Not "Professional Revolutionaries" rather, it's done by kids who are fed up with the world their parents and grandparents have left them. Sometimes these youth are manipulated altogether by other countries (ahem CIA) and special interest groups that see them as a way to gain economically and rise to power (ahem a correlation to Record labels)... But anger against the system and it's constant oppression is the cause of these words and actions. Gangsta Rap was originally another form of Revolutionary music-- it reached the unreachable, regardless of age, race, creed or gender. It taught the un-teachable. It made me (who at the time was hustlin', robbin' and stealing) truly listen because I felt like these people who were in the streets, who I could identify with, were talking about a world I could see but never had explained to me.

For example when I heard The Geto Boys album "Wee Can't be Stopped", Ice-T's "O.G.", Ice Cube's "Amerikkka'z Most Wanted" and KRS-1's "Criminal Minded" it made a strong impression of how the world really was. As I said before, it stated what I knew but could not articulate well yet. Also interesting is that "Criminal Minded" was considered Gangsta Rap (or as it was called then- "Reality Rap") at the time but now (like the rest of these albums should be) is classified as being Revolutionary. Similarly, Public Enemy is renowned for being Revolutionary but is not considered Gangsta even though they had a violent and extremely aggressive attitude towards dealing with the government and its hypocritical foreign policy and urban domestic failures. Albums and artists like these and the works of people such as the legendary Kool G Rap who redefined wordplay though are not the face of gangsta rap today. Even the social commentaries that were found hidden among the genius musical works of Dr.Dre and Snoop Dogg are absent from the scene after the turn of the Millennium. And even though wee always hear this theme repeated about the very nature of Hip Hop and how it has evolved or de-evolved some would say, if you look at Gangsta Rap now and then back then, the Revolutionary element is for the most part completely sanitized by the corporate structure.

Although I named mostly West Coast and Down South Artists, the East Coast had just as many Gangsta Rappers only wee looked at them differently because they were not as openly affiliated with any noticeable gangs such as the Bloods and Crips. After all, New York's Urban Empire was built upon street crews and educated hood syndicates such as the 5% nation at the time much more than colored rags even though some had several ties to local organized crime. (i.e.: Just-Ice, Wu-Tang, DITC, Nas, Biggie, Mobb Deep Black Moon to name a few...) But just remember that all areas whether they were the East, West, South, or Mid-West that even their most brutal musical origin are inseparable from the ideological Revolution that spawned them in the minds of urban youth. A factoid of information probably purposely forgotten through the years is that before it was labeled "Gangsta Rap" by the industry itself it was called "Reality Rap" by those individuals that created it, therefore that being the point of origin there is no way it cannot return to that, it just has to be done correctly.

Reality Rap, or as wee know it now Gangsta rap, can be very Revolutionary, although Revolution is very rarely a part of the BUSINESS side of any genre of music and more specifically Hip Hop. Revolutionaries work for the people. They take it upon themselves to dedicate their passion, love and hard work for the cause. But without the direction of a vision and those that would have grown any sort of true leadership skills they are essentially the horse from Animal Farm. While the average Gangsta is not motivated by the community, but rather capital gain and avarice, the average rapper reflects the survivalist attitude often overblown and exaggerated into greed rather than any proletariat example. But it is because these young soldiers have no self identification and no knowledge of their people and that's why they cling to the imagery of 3rd world warlords, drug kingpins, and well known members of the Italian and Jewish Mafia. They emulate characters written by script writers and not the heroes of their own people. The argument can be made that they don't know them, but many times though they are familiar with the names of our Revolutionary heroes and have some idea of their impact they don't see their example as relevant in our daily lives.

Think about it

(This post was last modified: 17/05/2007 10:33 AM by beaner2k6.)