To me, hip hop says, "Come as you are". We are a family. It ain't about security. It ain't about bling-bling. It ain't about how much your gun can shoot. It ain't about $200 sneakers. It is not about me being better than you or you being better than me. It's about you and me, connecting one to one. That's way it has universal appeal. It has given young people a way to understand their world, wheather they are from the suburbs or the city or wherever.
Hip-hop has also created a lot of jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist. But even more important, I think hip-hop has bridged the culture gap. It brings white kids together with Black kids, brown kids with yellow kids. They all have something in common that they love. It gets past the stereotypes and people hating each other because of those stereotypes.
People talk about the four hip-hop elements: DJing, B-Boying, MCing and Graffiti. I think that there are far more than those: the way you walk, the way you talk, the way you look, the way you communicate. Back in my era, we had James Brown and civil rights and Black power;you did not have people calling themselves hip-hop activists. But these people today are talking about their era. They have a right to speak on it the way they see it coming up.
Hip-hop is the voice of this generation. Even if you didn't grow up in the Bronx in the '70s, hip-hop is there for you. It has become powerful force. Hip-hop binds all of these people, all of those nationalities, all over the world together.
But the hip-hop generation is not making the best use of the recognition and the position that it has. Do we realize how much power hip-hop has? The hip-hop generation can take a stand collectively and make a statement. There are a lot of people who are doing something positive, who are doing hip-hop the way it was meant to be done. They are reaching young people, showing them what the world could be-people living together and having fun.
But too often, the ones that get the most recognition are those emphasizing the negative. And I think a lot of people are scared to speak on issues. "Keeping it real" has become just another fad word. It sounds cute. But it has been pimped and perverted. It ain't about keeping it real. It's got to be about keeping it right.
For example, rappers want to be so "bling-bling". Are you really living a luxorious life? Don't' you have other issues? What things touch you? That's what we'd like to hear rappers speak about. Start a dialogue with people. Talk about things going on in the neighborhood.
Music is sometimes a medication from reality, and the only time you get a dialogue is when tragedy happens. When Tupac or Biggie or Jam Master Jay died, that's when people wanted to have a dialogue. It was too late. Not enough people are taking advantage of using hip-hop as a way to deal with serious issues, as a way to try to change things beforee tragedy strikes.
We have the power to do that. If Jay-Z comes out one day with his shirt hangning this way or LL Cool J comes out with one leg of his pants rolled up, the next day everyone is doing the same things. If we decide one day to say that we're not gonna kill somebody senselessly, everyone will follow.
I don't want to hear people saying that they don't want to be role models. You might already have my son's attention. Let's get that clear. When I'm telling him, "Don't walk that way, don't talk that way," you're walking that way and talking that way. Don't just be like a drug dealer, like another pusher. Cut the crap. That's escape. That's the easy way out. You have the kid's attention. I'm asking you to help me raise him up.
You might be living lovely. But if you came out of the neighborhood, there was somebody who was there to guide you when you needed it, someone that said, "Son, here's two dollars." You might have beat up on the ghetto to get out of it, but what have you done for the ghetto lately? How can you come from nothing to get something, but yet at the same time, still do dirt to tear it all down?
Hip-hop has always been about having fun, but it's also about taking responsibility. And now we have a platform to speak our minds. Millions of people are watching us. Let's hear something powerful. Tell people what they need to hear. How will we help the community? What do we stand for? What would happen if we got the hip-hop generation to vote, or to form organization to change things? That would be powerful.
Hip-hop is a family, so everybody has got to pitch in. East, west, north, or south - we come from one coast and that coast was AFrica. This culture was born in the ghetto. We were born here to die. We're surviving now, but we're not yet rising up. If we've got a problem, we've got to correct it. We can't be hypocrites. That's what I hope the hip-hop generation can do, to take us all to the next level by always reminding us: It ain't about keeping real, it's about keeping it right.
DJ Kool Herc 2005.
Nije mi uopce namjera instigirati sada vec do bola izrabljenu i do besmisla dovedenu raspravu o smrti hip-hop-a, nego sam se nedavno podsjetila, nakon sto sam nabavila rijetki novi hip-hop album, koliko ja tu muzicku i kulturnu silu volim. I zasto. Ovaj uvod Kool Herc-a nekima moze zvucati hipijevski i antikvitetno ali onome ko voli hip hop,ja mislim, itekako puno govori. Da je ostao ovakav kakav je ovdje opisan, ja bih i dan danas kupovala i bjesomucno s neta krala hip hop albume. Ovako recikliram vec postojecu kolekciju i zivciram se kad po ulici vidim petnaestogodisnje klince svih rasa kako truju svoj jos neformirani um neinventivnim, intelektom i emocijom totalno lisenim smecem sto se danas naziva hip hop. Iz hip hopa se vise nista ne moze nauciti.
Informacija koja je fundamentalna postvaka kvalitetnog rap-a je nekompatibilna sa funkcijom industrije da sve svede na lowest common denominator, marketinski "atraktivno" upakira i time osigura najveci dio trzisnog kolaca. Metafizika i politika originalne rap lirike se ne uklapa u sise, vibrirajuce guzice i iskompleksiranu "mushkost" danasnje hip hop proizvodnje. I nemam ja nista protiv qrcenja, sisa i guzica ali sto je puno brate - puno je.
Zalosno je i, vise od svega, ironicno da kultura koja je nastala kao rezultat borbe protiv izolacije, besmislenog nasilja i ekonomske diskriminacije danas
mladim poklonicima nema osim bash toga nista drugo ponuditi. Nekad su, recimo, betlovi bili puni duha, dovitljivosti, inteligencije i elokvencije a danas se sve svodi na kalibrazu omiljene utoke te mogucnost iste da rasije organe doticnog kolege po trotoarima naselja. WTF?!? A nesnosljiva homofobija koja izvire iz svake pore, svakog takta, svake napisane rijeci ovdasnjih "air quote" repera "air quote" ,ako nije, trebala bi biti predmet socioloskih studija. Ja ne znam kako Afrika Bambaataa ne svisne od muke kad vidi gdje su njegov dugogodisnji rad i trud na eliminaciji nasilja i animoziteta medju ljudima, posebno Afro-Amerikanaca, zavrsili. Muka mi je vise i misliti, a kamoli pisati o korporaciji i dolaru koji je unistio sve sto se unistiti da. Gdje u funkciji korporacije bijeli covjek udje tu kulture i umjetnosti vise nema. Al' zato ima para...
No, s vremena na vrijeme ogrije i moju hiphop dushu sunce
, pa ushicarim i albumcic nadprosjecne muzicko-liricke kvalitete te se sjetim zasto sam se prvobitno i zaljubila u hip hop. I kako sam u Africi i na Srednjem Istoku upoznala fenomenalne mlade ljudi preko nashih ipod-a i hip-hop kolekcija. Sa mojim krnjavim francuskim i njihovim polovnim engleskim uz pomoc hip-hopa smo se savrseno razumjeli i ludo proveli. Takodjer sam ponukana izmijesanim emocijama i kisnim popodnevom odlucila da nadrobim ovaj post. Baj d vej, citirani uvod Kool Herc-a je iz knjige "Can't Stop Won't Stop - A History of The Hip-hop Generation" autora Jeff Chang-a koju, zainteresiranima, vise nego preporucujem.
off topic but yet still on
.. super tema, i uvodnik ...
, meni se sad pishe na ovoj temi 
