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10) The Virtual Hip Hopper: Hip Hop and rap embrace the internet as a newborn loves to be swaddled. At the end of the 90’s and 20th century, most Hip Hoppers barely knew of ring-tones, I-Tunes downloads, and the latest videos sent to your phone.  9) All The Eggs In Many Baskets: If you are a Hip Hop giant, like Puffy, 50, Eve, or Kanye, then you’d better have some sort of clothing line, cologne, and or even shoes that make you more money. Hell, even Ice-T has a virtual website where people log on, buy “virtual” capital goods, and use them in a virtual world; as Ice-T puts it, “I’m selling basically nothing, and people are buying it” now that’s hustling! 50 has a cologne called “Power” that he markets. Puffy and Jay Z both have clothing lines, and women like Eve, Lil’ Kim, and Queen Latifah continue to produce and market their own products to continually create income. This decade has seen an exponential growth in Hip Hop entrepreneurs becoming formidable business people. 8) Hip Hop Gon’ Hollywood: Ice Cube was the first major rap artist to hit the silver screen “big time” with the film Boyz In The Hood (1991). However, it took several years for that idea to catch on. During the 90’s we saw artists like Tupac, Treach, and DMX take to the screen. But during this last decade, it was an explosion of Hip Hoppers doing film: Common: American Gangster, Smokin’ Aces Mos Def: Brown Sugar, Be Kind Rewind L.L. Cool J: S.W.A.T., Charlie’s Angels Ludacris: Crash, 2 Fast 2 Furious 50: Get Rich Or Die Trying Eminem: 8-Mile Eve: The Barbershop series The Game: Waist Deep Queen Latifah: Bringing Down The House, Beauty Shop And many more who continue to make waves in Hollywood. All created a very lucrative path in Hollywood over the last 10 years. In addition, from the looks of it, it doesn’t seem to be slowing down either. 7) Sound Scan’s Scandal: One of the biggest turn of events that has shaped the course of Hip Hop is the realization that fans now have access to Sound Scan and thus knowing the record sales of artists. This has both positive and negative effects for artists. On the positive side, you, the fan, actually get to know up front how your artist is doing and what they’re selling. It can create a fan-demand-style of music given the power it gives listeners. On the negative side, it places unneeded pressure on the artist to “sell” and fans now use that as a leveraging point to almost “bully” artists into selling a lot of units in order to be “famous.” Back in the early days of Hip Hop, a rap artist was lucky if they sold 500,000 albums (Gold), and most fans, if they wanted the album, had to work to get that album. Now, this has created a type of “do this or else” type of market and rap artists almost have to put out albums that sell rather than doing their creative talent and art. 6) A Decade for Tupac: For those who thought Tupac would rise after 7 years—they were wrong. September 13, 2006 marked the 10-year anniversary of the slain rappers death. Many across the nation mourned and remembered the ghetto saint and during that week of his death anniversary, many songs, poems, and videos were shown to remember Pac’s life. Many Hip Hoppers reflected on that day and have almost begun to treat it as an unofficial Holiday for Hip Hop Kulture. 5) Hip Hop Selling: Over the last ten years, Hip Hop has been used to sell almost anything—literally. From cars, to radios, to church functions, all the way to hamburgers, Hip Hop has been a tool for marketing purposes and has made the culture lose even more of its initial grassroots “sting” that it touted so well in the 80’s and early 90’s. During the last ten years, rap music has been pimped out, almost to its vital detriment; if you’re in marketing, chances are at some point in your career you will use a form of Hip Hop to sell something…this has been a big tension point for the Hip Hop community. 4) Post 9/11 America Neutering: Following the attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, a neo-type of culture emerged in America that had ill effects on Hip Hop: it neuter mainstream Hip Hop. Post 9/11 culture demanded its citizens to be “patriotic” and “loyal” to its country. True in most cases, but it is a conflict of interest if you are a Hip Hopper who questions authority, recovers empty answers, and challenges the status quo at a critical and passionate level. Post 9/11 culture created a non-critical approach to viewing American issues such as race/ ethnicity, class, and religion. Hence, if you were a Hip Hopper wanting to say something about something in the public sphere, you had better get a good lawyer and a spin team to help you recover from that. Moreover, what post 9/11 culture did to Hip Hop was create a sense of “quietness” within the mainstream community. Oh yes, the underground is poppin’, but make no mistake, it is underground and very, very controversial. By 2009 we see Hip Hop trying to make a turn back to its roots, but caught in the vices of “being palatable” to the rest of America. 3) Kanye’s Words: While the spewing of Kanye’s words did not do him any good when he abruptly and rudely interrupted Taylor Swift on the 2009 MTV Music Awards (although that event help push the young start to super star status), Kanye’s outbursts haven’t all been train wrecks. A critical racial and class chasm was uncovered when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans with its full force and the levees broke flooding out many poor and underrepresented neighborhoods. What followed was a mess. During a televised fundraiser for the victims of Katrina, Mike Myers and Kanye stood side by side to read off a prompted script. Kanye suddenly went off script and began to call out the “mess” that had occurred in New Orleans. His now infamous statement “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people…” made headlines everywhere and actually made it seem as though Hip Hop was about to make a stand for the injustice that had occurred. Moreover, it appeared that Hip Hop would begin to get back to its grassroots ideology within the mainstream. Kanye’s first album The College Dropout, was a hit; and the tone throughout the entire album spoke to change in society and for the ‘hood. Kanye is known for his controversial remarks, but that particular one made him a household name in the Hip Hop world. It also jump-started many to begin taking a closer look at what was going on not just in Hip Hop, but in the ‘hoods of America. As Michael Eric Dyson reminds us, “West was suggesting that the government had callously broken its compact with its poor black citizens, and that it had forgotten them because it had not taken their pain to heart…West was not referring to the president’s personal sentiments about black people…West was speaking of George Bush as the face of the government” (Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and The Color of Disaster 2006 p. 28). 2) The Collegiate Hip Hopper: One of the best things that happened to Hip Hop over the last decade is that it was finally embraced and taken seriously by higher educational institutes. There are now more 4-year colleges with at least some connection to Hip Hop studies. Moreover, scholars like Bakari Kitwana, Mark Anthony Neal, Tricia Rose, Michael Eric Dyson, Imani Perry, Craig Watkins, and Jeff Chang have taken the discipline of Hip Hop studies to new heights. What was once a foolish thought to have a class on Hip Hop, is now becoming an even stronger movement to get a major in the area of Hip Hop. This has helped our culture along tremendously! I look forward to the next ten years! (Of course, once we get passed 2012 ;-)). And, the number one socio-cultural issue that has affected Hip Hop over the last ten years is… 1) The Strip Club Rap Era: in 2000 Nelly dropped his now notorious album, Country Grammar, and thus, ushering in the party/ strip club/booty /thong rap music genre era. I credit this album for beginning this era in which Hip Hop is currently in. Nelly’s album created a new sound that has been duplicated over, and over, and over again. Moreover, Nelly set the trend as to what to rap about in albums that “sell.” Booty, hoes, money, power, and fame; with those five combinations, you are almost assured that you will sell a million albums (platinum). This era and musical genre was shown well in the film Hustle & Flow and really gave the Third Coast and Dirty South a foundation in which others could see. Don’t get it twisted, I’m not hating on the Dirty South or on Third Coast rap, I’m simply saying that Nelly helped to usher in our current status in rap and Hip Hop. A place that has many of us wondering what is next for our Kulture that is now in it’s mid to late 30’s. It also has me asking, how long hoes, booty, power, money and fame has to last before we, as a Hip Hop community, say enough is enough. I’m not sure, but one thing is for sure, this was an immense shift for Hip Hop that really set the tone for the last ten years. Well, here it is…my top ten list of main shifts and issues for Hip Hop over the decade. I would have done if for the last decade, but shoot, blogs weren’t really around in 1999! Sound off, what are your “best of the best” of the last decade? You can also read another take on the decade in Hip Hop from a musical perspective by clicking here. |
