The Disenfranchisement of the Hip-Hopper By Simone Johnson

No fancy intro.  No dope one-liner.  Just one major thought: as a whole, I don’t feel today’s hip-hop.  I struggled trying to figure out why my heart breaks when I hear the radio or why my fingers aren’t itching to turn the radio on at all.  Well…they do itch at the same time everyday: old school at noon.   I don’t feel like hip-hop today is wack and I don’t feel like its garbage.  I feel disenfranchised from it.  Yes, disenfranchised.  But the question is, why?

     I am a part of the first generation of hip-hoppers.  The generation that I belong to was not only the first to be exposed to hip-hop, we defined hip-hop.  We determined what were the best qualities to be considered a dope emcee (I say flow, lyrical skill and delivery). We demanded it be played on the radio.  We pushed for soft, racist television stations to play the videos on television.    We are the ones who said that we need bigger venues.  We saw the dollar signs long before any corporation.   Shit, we are the ones that started the most heated conversation in hip-hop: Who are your top 5 emcees?  Having been a part of so much of this billion dollar genre of music since its inception, it’s just fucked up to feel disenfranchised from it.  

     I like Wiz Khalifa on some songs but not as a whole.  I like think Nicki Minaj has lyrical skills but her album is garbage to me.  I understand the craze over Tyler but his music ain’t for me.  I am a hater.  I am a dick rider.  I am a follower.  I’m a backpacker.  Ehhh.  It’s all too much.  Disenfranchisement equates to being voiceless, voteless.  I ain’t vote for all of my favorite emcees to only be played for 40 minutes at noon.  I didn’t ask to not be represented on the radio in 2011.  I cannot relate to most of these emcees nowadays because I am from a different age group.  In layman's terms, I'm old.  I find that in hip-hop there is this unwritten and ever so omnipresent grandfather clause.  Once your favorite emcee grandfathers out of hip-hop, they are has-beens.  And once you, the fan, reach a certain age, you too are a has-been.  I had a dude tell me, in his frustrated state of rejection, that I was immature because I still listened to hip-hop (yes, yes he did) and that if I gave him a chance he would teach me how to grow up and expose me to jazz music. Sidebar: unbeknownst to his lil self my sister and I are daughters of a jazz musician (Uh, click click boom?  Yes.  Boom indeed).  In one of D-Nice’s very well executed True Hip-Hop story video interviews with DoItAll (one half of Lords of The Underground), DoItAll said that just because he has gotten older, he still loves hip-hop.  He said what I have been saying for a long time “no one is making adult contemporary hip-hop”.  Ahhhh.  Thus the gnawing feeling of disenfranchisement.  

     I blame us.  The 1st generation of hip-hoppers, now that we are in the grandfather group, don’t support our favorite emcees when they have grandfathered, unwillingly, out of hip-hop.  Would you purchase a new Lords of The Underground album today?  How many of you got Naughty By Nature's download they put out last year?  (Shit was proper, word).  Precisely my point.  With the exception of Jay-Z and a sexy LL Cool J single, we too are falling victim to seeing older emcees as dinosaurs.  Which is just weird to me because that would make all of us dinosaurs.  If Chubb Rock is "too old" to make albums, then ain't we too old to listen to Nicki Minaj or Lil Wayne or Curren$y?

     I won't subscribe to the idea that we are too old.  We are in our late 20's to early to mid 40's.  That ain't old is it?  I think a lot of younger emcees are talented but their music doesn't resonate within me.  Not because I miss the days of yore but because I don't know their experiences.  I had different experiences when I was their age.   I do feel that they have a right to be here in this space called hip-hop.  There is something for everybody.  Hip-Hop fans are the only fans that refuse to allow it to branch off and create minature lanes within itself.  I think that we need to be cool with creating sub-genres for hip-hop.  Hip-Pop (a la Nicki Minaj, Black Eyed Peas, etc)  Hip-Hop Grunge (Tyler, Moruf, Mickey Factz and all other young angry, dare-to-be different emcees) There are always sub-genres of music that submerge.  Grunge came out of 80's metal.  Where would Nirvana be had Motley Crue or Black Sabbath not existed?  In the immortal words of Mekhi Pfifer in Paid in Full as he claps his hands a la Kevin Hart style "everybody eats".

     I am probably just grasping at straws here but I need to find a way to not feel disenfranchised.  I don't think its fair that Naughty By Nature and the Beatnuts can only tour and do old music.  Don't you like new fresh music?  I know I do.  And by the way, I am a huge Curren$y fan.  So I am not a hater.  I do like some shit out there.  As a whole tho...?  I stand firm in saying nope, I can't relate.  I don't wanna be voted off or out of hip-hop.  I still need to feel like my heart and soul is being listened to by emcees who are my age and still love hip-hop.  It is my love.  It is the music of my generation.  It is what makes me part of who I am.  The 1st generation of hip-hoppers don't wanna be left out or forgotten like some old toy under a bunkbed.  We just want to have music for us.  Just because we are older it doesn't mean we don't love hip-hop anymore.  We probably love it now more than ever because of the memories we have.  And if nothing else, hip-hop has saved me from myself and so many of us from ourselves more times than Lupe can count.  And that should account for something.  Right?

By Simone Johnson (c) 2011

I reposted this cause I enjoy hip-hop music immensely.  As an older fan now I look for more  in artists & their music.  So being that I was fortunate enough to read this note I just had to share the viewpoints.