I've been thinking a lot lately about the state of hip-hop culture. I guess a natural outgrowth of hip-hop as a cultural phenomenon is other groups taking and molding the culture to fit their own views and needs. I came face-to-face with this notion the other day while doing random web surfing... y'know how you start looking for one thing and forty minutes later end up on a site so far removed from the original search you forget what you were looking for... no?... just me? Anyway, I came across a site that covers indie rock and hip-hop music. The first thing that caught my eye was in a story about the new
Wu-Tang album and to make a long story short, the dude writing the story made a crack, "that should be good news to you Wu-Tang fans... both of you" or words to that effect. The story was written by a White guy. My first thought was, Word!?! Does he really think he has a handle on the following of the Wu? Well, that wasn't my first thought but it was my first thought without profanity.
After reading that story I decided to delve further into this site whereupon I find a review of Common's latest joint, "
Finding Forever". They basically hated it. Really?... I thought it was one of the best albums of '07. Common is one of the few emcees still making real hip-hop music and Barney from the 'burbs thinks it's wack. I read on and catch a few other reviews and basically what I discover is my opinion is almost always different from their reviewer [they have several]. That took me down a road of, should you review stuff that's not intended for you in the first place? How can you expect to "get" something that is from a place you've never been? How much of a role does context play when evaluating art? I mean, should I get the latest
White Stripes album and complain that it's too noisy and the lyrics aren't relevant? I actually like some of their stuff but they are not talking to me... or making music with me in mind... would I be the best person to judge the merits of their albums? Probably not.
The funny thing about the reviews is how well written and constructed they were... these guys had clearly done their homework. For each artist they were citing cuts from previous albums and making references to hometowns and producers and all of the things you could learn from buying a few cds and hitting google... it's like they were trying to substitute literary writing for actual experience in the culture to prove their qualifications... to let us know they were down. Uhh... no. Being able to turn a phrase and quote lyrics from a body of work doesn't tell me you understand the essence of the message.
So I'm heated about the fact that these dudes are getting shine [none here, they will remain nameless] and are putting out ill-informed reviews... then it hit me... their reviews weren't written for me. It had not occurred to me that other groups consider hip-hop music something they can own too. So now I'm wrestling with the idea that we can't just wrap our arms around hip-hop music and claim sole ownership. Even though we still produce the overwhelming majority of this music, we are not the only consumers - some might argue we aren't even the largest consumer group any more. I guess that means other groups have the right to call it as they see it. Even if they are wrong. This must be the way cats at Timberland and Moet felt when their products were co-opted, something like, "I'll take your money but, what are you doing to my product?!" Once it's in the public domain, you can't really control what folks do with your creation.
I used to let out a cynical chuckle anytime I encountered a mainstream music critic writing about hip-hop music because I felt he or she couldn't possibly be qualified to write the review. Of course, until now I assumed they were talking to me. I'm now wrapping my head around the idea that they don't need me to have their conversation on the music. So if Mitchell wants to tell Ward what to think of the latest
Talib Kweli album there isn't anything I can do about it. They reserve the right to express what it means to them even if that has nothing to do with what the album means to Talib or me or you. Damn. I think I'm going to review some White Stripes... that'll show 'em.
