Conscious Hip Hop

I'm updating every Wednesday from now on! These updates have appeared on Tuesdays because I'm generally an idiot and am confused on the day it is most of the time. Hopefully, it will never happen again.

I remember that I looked at Wikipedia once, and noticed that under the "conscious hip hop" category, there was a quote from Mos Def. Luckily, it's still there!

"They keep trying to slip the 'conscious rapper' thing on me...I come from Roosevelt Projects, man. The ghetto. I drank the same sugar water, ate hard candy. And they try to get me because I'm supposed to be more articulate, I'm supposed to be not like the other Negroes, to get me to say something against my brothers. I'm not going out like that, man."

Is it that bad to be labeled a conscious rapper? I'm sure there's worse he could be called.

But I guess the comparison isn't earned on some respect. When rap evolved from block parties to DJ + MC to a way to get music money from a fad to an artform that's here to stay, it eventually had to be divided into subcategories. Rock didn't stay rock. It became pop rock, punk rock, alternative, heavy metal, experimental, and so forth. However, rock's different categories come from it's sound where rap's different categories come mostly from lyrics (though production does have a part in this equation).

The main difference now seems to be "mainstream" vs everything else. The mainstream rappers know what they have to do: release a first/second single that could possibly catch on the radio/in the club, then hope for the best when it comes to people picking up the album. On the album, of course, it's possible to get a glimpse into what the mainstream rappers are about. Possibly songs about their life, their relationships, their personal beliefs, or just more songs about the money flaunted in the club where the will, no doubt, pick up a girl to fuck and run with. This will repeat itself over and over again, and while some rappers get a long shelf-life using this strategy (Snoop Dogg, LL Cool J, etc.), most rappers disappear, having their music become go more towards any other sub-genre of rap music to stay in the game.

While "gangsta rap" was once mainstream, its influence is waining slowly. An influential gangsta rapper hasn't come around in a long time, while more middle of the road mainstream rappers are taking their place, with just stories about growing up in the hood, so coming across as hood has become more profitable. So why don't conscious rappers get recognition? Because while Mos Def is a product of the ghetto, he never glorifies it. He's not ashamed of where he comes from, but he's not going to tell you it's the greatest thing since sliced bread at the same time. While more of his mainstream songs, like "Ms. Fat Booty," haven't gotten the radio play music executives prefer, he and his work do show that he won't willingly make rhymes about his money being used for the new Mercedes-Benz (which I made up, I dunno if he has one or not, but I doubt it). His rhymes would rather focus on... almost anything else? Yes, almost anything else.

However, he has a point. General public accepts that anything outside of mainstream rap is just rappers who are judgmentally superior to the music, when that's not the truth. KRS-One, another "conscious rapper," started out with Criminal Minded before moving on to "Stop the Violence." Now, the line is divided between rappers who rap about what they know (which is also divided between the thug life persona of mainstream and conscious rap) and rappers who rap about the money they hope they have (which usually doesn't happen, damn record industry). No conscious rappers think they're better than mainstream rappers in general, but usually can rap lyrically at a much better rate.

Now rap is even more and more divided past mainstream and conscious/underground. There's now crunk (Lil' Jon), chopped and screwed (Mike Jones), and even beyond the spectrum that most people thought were possible, such as nerdcore (MC Frontalot) and emo (Gym Class Heroes). While these differing types of rap are now necessary on many levels, it's important to realize that one isn't better than the other anywhere beyond a single person's opinion. Sorry Mos, I think you're a conscious rapper, but I'd never think of you as a traitor to your race because you haven't told me about your latest big purchase, either. The smart hip-hop heads out there will know the difference.

-UnFan out