Why do I love Rap and Hip Hop Culture so much??? This is a question I ask myself almost everyday. The truth of the matter is that when I first paid attention to music period, I was really into 80's pop. On weekday afternoons and weekends, you could find my young self in front of the large tube T.V. watching MTV (Music Television). I would become mesmerized by MTV's Moon Man mascot and right after he appeared then came Michael Jackson, Duran Duran or Cyndi Lauper, the latter I had silent crush on.
It wasn't until a short time after that I was introduced to early rap music and hip hop culture. When I was younger, I could remember hearing deejay mix shows blaring from a boombox radio in my older brothers room. I became curious as to what that style of music was and from there I became familiar with the likes of DJ Red Alert, Mister Magic and Marley Marl as well as others. I am presenting to you this short back story to give you some insight as to how I was introduced to Hip Hop, The Art of Rap and Deejaying. Not only that but you could catch my neighborhood friends and I at the corner of our block break dancing, on rear occasions.
So now we fast forward to the current day and time. I find myself still in love with Hip Hop Culture because there is so much to learn about it and I want to know more. At the same time, unseen forces behind life's mysteriously big curtain seems to want to bring Hip Hop down wiping away its true roots and origins. You have those within the Black community that wish to segregate Hip Hop even from within the Black community itself (for example: The F.B.A. vs. Caribbeans). You have one group claiming stakes in Hip Hop's origins while the latter has just as much to do with Hip Hop as the other, if not more so. But from a juxtaposed view, it would seem that neither party can claim ownership because neither group has a respectable stake financially in Hip Hop. With that being said, people outside of the Black community actually own the majority stake in Hip Hop's sector as it relates to the audio recording business. The point I am trying to make is that the people who initially created the genre own little to none of it to date. This will not change until our mindset changes to ownership and not just being comfortable as the consumer base.
In conclusion, Major Labels will continue to flood the musical landscape with mostly but figuratively “trash” music that will be forced-fed to the masses. Not only that but will slip a few A.I. (Artificial Intelligence) Rappers and or recording artists through the listeners ears. Those within the younger generation who don't have their wits about them won't be able to decipher real musicians from fakes. But let me repeat what I've said before and that is Underground Rap and or Hip Hop will thrive throughout all of the nonsense. Underground rappers better strike while the iron is hot because it is your time again now!
~Dre' from Jerz (Recording Artist, Songwriter, & Music Producer)