WingsOfAnAngel
Banned
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 3
White people have been involved in Hip Hop since its beginnings. This might catch some off guard, but it's fact. Graffiti, which began in its modern form during the 1960s, had a number of white writers. Taki 183, a Greek kid from Upper Manhattan, is credited as being the first tagger. Some white bombers, such as Seen, arguably New York's most influential writer ever, became extremely prolific at both bombing and piecing. Crews such as Tracy 168's Wild Style crew contained many white members. Serious white interest in Hip Hop blossomed with the international success of Run-D.M.C. in 1984. It was ironically a white rock producer and musician named Rick Rubin, who had worked with Run-D.M.C., that was responsible for releasing the first big white Hip Hop group: the Beastie Boys with License To Ill in 1986. The Beastie Boys, a former and sometime still rock group, dropped tracks like "Brass Monkey" and "Paul Revere" and exploded on the charts, introducing a whole new generation and race of kids to Hip Hop. Many white kids who were previously unable to relate to the hard-core Black and Latino urban ghetto energy of Hip Hop now had a group they could look to. However, the Beastie Boys soon strayed away from Hip Hop, preferring to go back to their rock roots, and a new crowd of white Hip Hop heads found salvation in the endless stream of classic Black Hip Hop that the mid and late 1980s produced. White America had, what was for most of them, their first introduction into the world of Reagan's post-crack era Black America—a very different world indeed. In 1989 Hip Hop got its first taste of 3rd Base. 3rd Base was comprised of a duo of two white rappers—MC Serch and the clean cut, lyrically inferior, and very out of place seeming Pete Nice—and a Black DJ named DJ Rich. MC Serch, a native of Brooklyn's predominantly Black Do-Or-Die Bedstuy neighborhood, manifested the most trueness to Hip Hop of any white artist up to that point. His strong base in Brooklyn's Hip Hop scene further strengthened his credibility. After releasing several albums and aiding in the launching of several artists' careers—including that of Nasty Nas (now Nas)—MC Serch continued his career in Hip Hop as an A&R rep for the now defunct legendary Wild Pitch Records. The 1990s saw N.W.A. and gangster rap's growing popularity propelling Hip Hop into the next level. The severe crack driven crime waves of the mid and late 1980s subsided a little, and Hip Hop moved into its next era. An era of subpar and outright horrible white rap artists, an era stained by Vanilla Ice, House of Pain, Young Black Teenagers (who were white, some sporting blonde dreadlocks), Snow, and others. Hip Hop has become an international phenomenon, spreading beyond race and class boundaries. With the growing immense popularity of Hip Hop comes more and more cries of "Hip Hop is for everybody." Hip Hop has spread like a forest fire across the globe, swallowing Black, Latino, Asian, Middle Eastern, and white fans alike. It's mass appeal is indisputable, but is Hip Hop really for everybody? Throughout the history of American music, theft has been the modus operandi; whites have coopted Black music and used and abused it for their financial benefit. Musics deep seated in southern Black culture have one by one been stolen: jazz, blues, and rock. I say stolen because that's the word one uses when something is taken and nothing is given back. In a country where Blacks for so long were not allowed to succeed in anything but music and entertainment (and still this way to an extent), this becomes a great tragedy. In the 1920's and 1930s white jazz clubs, benefiting and profiting off of a Black cultural creation, would not allow Blacks to enter, except as shoe shine boys or other such menial workers—and sometimes not even then. Blatant racism. In the 1950s Black rock artists such as Little Richard—an inventor of rock music—were criticized, threatened, and even boycotted. Buddy Holly, a southern white hillbilly, redid Black hits several years later and became an instant smash success. Blatant racism. Rock and jazz are, for all intents and purposes, dead art forms now. What once were deep Black cultural arts have become processed and commercialized until the original forms are unrecognizable, until most Blacks refuse to listen to their modern forms anymore. They have been coopted by white society or profit. History is repeating itself in the guise of Hip Hop. What once was an art created by Blacks and Latinos in New York's ghettos has become "for everybody." Whites have participated in Hip Hop for over 25 years, but make no mistake—Hip Hop is not white; it is Black and Latino. It was formed due to the unique conditions Black and Latino ghetto youth face. It is a product of the hopes, creativity, fears, and struggles American Black and Latinos face, and as such, it contains elements and an energy the vast majority of whites cannot possibly ever understand The very same whites who once wanted no part of Hip Hop, who laughed at its braggadocios character, now can recite crateloads of rhymes. The very white society that wanted nothing to do with Blacks now wants Hip Hop, a uniquely urban Black and Latino art, to be "for everybody." Major record labels, owned and controlled by whites—the same labels that once ignored Hip Hop completely—now control the direction of Hip Hop. Record companies have learned what the white masses want to hear—stories of Blacks killing Blacks, or occasionally, Latinos killing Latinos; gangster artists who rap about ghetto violence are being signed by the thousands, with no regard for the effects on inner city youth, and the biggest consumers of it are suburban whites. What is given back to the Black communities that created Hip Hop? Nothing but a few million dollars—of the billions being made—into the pockets of artists who would sell their souls and consciences to the highest bidder. Meanwhile, whites continue to buy and listen to Hip Hop in record numbers. Do these whites truly appreciate what Hip Hop is and where it comes from? Do they appreciate that it is a Black music, a Black and Latino culture, and that is generously shared with them? Evidence and experience says no. The pattern of cultural theft continues. For those who find this article offensive, I challenge you. If this article really bothers you, you need to consider what you are in Hip Hop for. Are you in it for the music? The clothes? Or are you in it because you love it, and those who created it? I would not deny whites' rights to listen and participate in Hip Hop, but for those whites who do, examine yourself and ask: "Exactly why am I in Hip Hop?" Peace.
