Who hasn't read Greg Tate's "Hiphop at 30" article which made the front page of the Village Voice this week? Many bloggers have linked to it, praise all around. I've read the article twice and a half but refuse to drink the Kool Aid.
See, Tate is a great writer. And the Village Voice is a quality publication. But they have it wrong on this one.
Tate believes that the commercialization of Hiphop has ruined its roots of being powerful music that represents Black people. He says:
"Hiphop may have begun as a folk culture, defined by its isolation from mainstream society, but being that it was formed within the America that gave us the coon show, its folksiness was born to be bled once it began entertaining the same mainstream that had once excluded its originators...But from the moment "Rapper's Delight" went platinum, hiphop the folk culture became hiphop the American entertainment-industry sideshow."
Haven't we read this somewhere before? Claiming hiphop is dead sounds cool, but even little Virginia know it's not true. Plus it's too easy. C'mon, Tate. You can do better.
His thoughts on hip-hop's lack of social consciousness:
"And since those people just might need nothing more from hiphop in their geopolitically circumscribed lives than the escapism, glamour, and voyeurism of hiphop, why would they ever chasten hiphop for not steady ringing the alarm about the African American community's AIDS crisis, or for romanticizing incarceration more than attacking the prison-industrial complex, or for throwing a lyrical bone at issues of intimacy or literacy or, heaven forbid, debt relief in Africa and yada, yada, yada?" ("yadas" added by me).
Haven't we read this somewhere before? True believers, understand this- hiphop doesn't need to get more political, political movements need to get more hiphop. Nelly makes for a bad feminist. 50 Cent is not my spiritual leader, and I don't want him to be.
Let me quote Jeff Chang who once quoted Bill Stephney: "Woe be it unto a community that has to rely on rappers for political leadership. Because that doesn’t signify progress, that signifies default. Now that our community leaders cannot take up their responsibility, you’re gonna leave it up to an 18-year kid who has mad flow? What is the criteria by which he has risen to his leadership? He can flow? That’s the extent of it? If our leadership is to be determined by an 18-year old without a plan, then we’re in trouble. We’re f--ked."
The problem is our leaders have a hard time connecting with the people and are jealous of hip-hop's ability to strike a nerve and mobilize heads to buy, say, or think just about anything. So they blame the music for not using its powers for "good", and the fans for being so stupid as to be distracted and not listen to what they have to say. Our leaders (and I'm grouping politicians, ministers, and journalists under the term) have forgotten that they are the ones who are supposed to reveal the truth, speak the truth, and take us to the truth, not our entertainment. I want my comedies to make me laugh, my music to make me dance. That's it. Don't put the weight on someone else.
Tate goes on:
"I remember the Afrocentric dream of hiphop's becoming an agent of social change rather than elevating a few ex-drug dealers' bank accounts. Against my better judgment, I still count myself among that faithful."
This is sad, because that sentence sounds like it comes out of the Stanley Crouch, John McWhorter playbook. Tate sounds bitter. Disillusioned by the wrong expectations of the music he loves. He sounds old.
I wonder- when is the last time Tate went to the club and saw a thicky-thick girl drop down and get her eagle on right in front of him? I think an experience like that would change his opinion about hip-hop for the better.
UPDATE: David feels the same way about Tate's article and though many are divided.
