?uest Love of the Roots has published his first part in a six part series entitled, "How Hip-Hop Failed Black America". In this piece, he categorizes Hip-Hop as "an entire cultural movement, packed into one hyphenated adjective." His argument, though a bit complex, proclaims that everything "Black" is subjected and defined by what mainstream society has labeled as Hip-Hop.
These days, nearly anything fashioned or put forth by black people gets referred to as “hip-hop,” even when the description is a poor or pointless fit. “Hip-hop fashion” makes a little sense, but even that is confusing: Does it refer to fashions popularized by hip-hop musicians, like my Lego heart pin, or to fashions that participate in the same vague cool that defines hip-hop music? Others make a whole lot of nonsense: “Hip-hop food”? “Hip-hop politics”? “Hip-hop intellectual”? And there’s even “hip-hop architecture.” What the hell is that? A house you build with a Hammer? This doesn’t happen with other genres. There’s no folk-music food or New Wave fashion, once you get past food for thought and skinny ties. There’s no junkanoo architecture. The closest thing to a musical style that does double-duty as an overarching aesthetic is punk, and that doesn’t have the same strict racial coding.Although ?uest Love views the wild success of Hip-Hop as an overarching failure, Jonathan Smith, of policymic.com, exudes praise for Hip-Hop's influence in his rebuttal to ?uest Love, "Hip-Hop May Have Failed Quest Love, but It Saved Me". This essay, delves into the confused psyche of Black kid from a White suburb and his struggles of not being "black enough". Smith further details Hip-Hop's influence on his psychological progress through his academic years:
When I arrived at boarding school, I was constantly told I wasn't really black. Kids would compare me to Carlton on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air... As a pimpled and chubby high school freshman attending boarding school 2,000 miles from home, the confidence to fight those expectations was in short supply. Hip-hop didn't oppress me, though: It gave me that confidence. It was impossible to listen to The Roots' 1999 album Things Fall Apart and not feel it... I had the intricate and philosophical tracks on Nas' Stillmatic instead. I took to heart the Nas lyrics from "Rule," "With survival of the fittest, every day is a chal' / I would think I'm a part of U.S.A. and be proud."
Check out both essays and respond below. Do you think Hip-Hop has saved us, or ruined us?
