Stanley Crouch: Obama and the Future of Hip Hop
December 1, 2008 by blackgirlgrown
Filed under engage, obama
It continues to appear that the cool and highly intelligent Barack Obama is going to have a powerful impact on debilitating black popular culture, particularly hip hop. The signs are everywhere.
In the wake of Byron Hurt’s searing documentary “Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes,” hip-hop fans have questioned the retarding effect that hip hop has had on young black men through encouraging thuggish violence, misogyny, clownish behavior and crude materialism.
Hurt’s documentary is most powerful because the filmmaker himself is a fan of the idiom but, as a grown and responsible man, he felt it was necessary to call out hip hop’s many shortcomings because the idiom had moved from clever rhymes and dance beats to advocating personal, social and criminal corruption.
Those who pretend that they do not know what Hurt is investigating because “that is not ALL of hip hop” need to take note of the fact that Russell Simmons, the godfather of hip hop, recently blamed the deep vulgarization of the genre on producers who would do anything for a buck. “Some producers have found that dirt sells,” says the godfather. How now, brown cow?
Simmons is nothing if not clever and senses that the arrival of Barack and Michelle Obama could mean things are going to change. One would not at all be smart to defend the “authenticity” of pimps, supposed whores (all women, actually), misogyny, thuggery and the rest. Pimps up, ho’s down, as they say. Read More.
