My book, Hip Hop America (Penguin), is in its twelfth edition in the States (with an updated edition due in the spring) and I've produced several screen-related hip hop projects. Not only have I witnessed hip hop's monumental growth, I've benefited materially from it. I wrote some of the earliest pieces ever done on Kool Herc, Love Bug Starski and Kurtis Blow. Moreover, a new generation of young black politicians is rising that was raised on rap, such as Detroit's Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, who is in his early thirties and has been known to blast Jay-Z in City Hall.Īside from being a child of the Sixties, I started my career as a journalist in New York when what we call hip hop was just a series of cultural expressions that could be spotted on any street. Truth be told, if you asked most socially conscious twentysomething black Americans who their role models are today, they are more likely to be a Simmons or a Combs than any elected officials. In New York state, home to draconian drug sentencing laws long attacked by civil rights leaders for their impact on minorities, Simmons's lobbying led to the laws' first significant amendment at the end of 2004. In a campaign notable for its lack of soaring rhetoric, Combs's 'Vote or Die' T-shirts carried one of the few memorable slogans. In the last presidential election it was hip hop entrepreneurs such as Russell Simmons and Sean Combs who led aggressive get-out-the-vote efforts and registered thousands of new voters. Aside from Oprah Winfrey's ubiquitous TV talk show, images of black people around the world are now dominated by hip hop figures or symbols associated with it.Įven in the realm of political activism, which was the crowning achievement of the soul years, hip hop is at the cutting edge. Advertising images have accelerated the acceptance of hip hop imagery as powerfully as any music videos. My point is that what was once a folk expression has since matured into a multi-million dollar industry encompassing an array of products that sell across the spectrum of race, class and nationality. Happily, there isn't hip hop food, but under its banner you can get drunk (Hennessy, malt liquor, crunk juice), get dressed (Phat Farm, Sean Jean, Roc-a-Wear clothing lines), workout (Jay-Z and 50 Cent both market sneakers), watch movies (Will Smith, Ice Cube, Mos Def and Queen Latifah have all become thespians via rapping), laugh (with comedians like Chris Rock) and masturbate (MC-hosted porn tapes sell in the hundred thousands).Īnd I'm leaving tons of other examples out. MCs ('rapper' is so Eighties), of course, make hip hop records, but now most of the young singing stars of R&B identify as strongly with Jay-Z as they do with Marvin Gaye. Hip hop is the new international definition of the contemporary black experience. But, it's quite evident, that's no longer true. For a while no single catchphrase defined us as precisely as soul had. Soul was a one word summation of our spirit, our desires and self-esteem.Īs the 1970s gave way to the Eighties, the concept of soul, once so central to our identity, became an anachronism, a definition of a time and attitude that now belonged to Black History Month. Political figures such as 'Bull' Connor, George Wallace and Richard Nixon - none of them had soul. We were amused and sometimes flattered when whites talked of blue-eyed soul. On the streets we marched for soul power. There were soul magazines and an enduring TV show called Soul Train. Then, we all ate soul food, greeted each other with soul shakes and got our hair cut at soul scissors barbershops. First, there was soul music, led by James Brown, soul brother number one, and Aretha Franklin, soul sister number one. Growing up in a black neighbourhood in Brooklyn, New York in the Sixties and Seventies, I found 'soul' everywhere.
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