| From the April 2004 Issue of POLITRICX E-MAGAZINE |
The Expanding Brand of Hip-Hop
by Legacy
By now you know Hip-Hop represents all the finer points
of basic American life. We hear Hip-Hop in commercials
selling all types of products including toothpaste to
cars. With the computer age heavy into full swing over
the past 4 years Hip-Hop has been selling video games
as well. EA Sports has been the forefront of such
activity with including some of the hottest artist out
and debuting talent on their video games as well.
I mean how many of you remember Ludacris doing the
opening for Madden Football a couple of years back?
Well leave it to the video game word to now expound
even more on the Hip-Hop genre with again EA Sports Big
franchise to release a sequel to Def Jam Vendetta.
With the birth of this game do you feel Hip-Hop has now
touch every outlet that it can touch?
With the topic of Hip-Hop now in the presidential race
and being circulated into the mass commercial media
where can Hip-Hop go from here? The answer is from my
point of view anywhere we want to take it. Yet, who is
going to harbor the responsibility to respect and see
our culture live on? Clearly the answer should be
everyone that claims to be apart of this culture. Hip-
Hop has gone from the corners of neighborhood parties
to the everyday grind of mainstream media. Yet with
this expansion we have yet to govern Hip-Hop to make it
be represented in a serious state. Ok I am lying but
then again there are many set backs along this trail.
The stripper videos or nice but Hip-Hop is more then
shaking asses. And people let’s stop putting the
streets into the argument as an excuse to release
negative music. Now true not everyone can be Talib
Common and Mos, but not everyone should be 50 Cent
neither. With Hip-Hop selling images of killing and
murder almost 90% of the time you tell me how important
it was for Kanye West’s album to drop in the game. Are
more people going to see that as the call for the flip
over from thuggish “I don’t give a fuck” music to a
more conscious vibe? I doubt it because Hip-Hop was a
lash out against the norm and for the American norm the
ghetto is the outcry to “traditional” American life.
But with the “traditional” life changing with the
change of the generation in power we now have more
races and ethnic creeds being exposed to Hip-Hop and
that can help and hurt the Hip-Hop culture. My
generation is now the mid twenty something’s and we
will soon be running the world of politics and
classrooms in a more nominal role and Hip-Hop has
guided us to react and expose our feelings in ways
generation before us couldn’t. Now with other races and
ethnic groups seeing each other’s life styles we now
have a better understanding of what the “other side”
lives like and what they do. But where do we go from
here?
Can you imagine a presidential inauguration with In the
Club or Fight the Power playing in a victory party?
Probably not but that could be a future that can come
true in the foreseeable future. With Hip-Hop not only
being the voice of the youth where are we the
generations of the 70’s and 80’s going to take our
culture when we are the middle aged and the dominant
working class? In the Classroom and into the future I
hope with us governing our culture and not making it
define us not only by our have-nots but also by where
we are in the world as citizens of a higher cause so I
hope.
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