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I was talking to my editor Stone one day about what my next article should be and he said, “People are always talking about Hip-Hop’s past but never about its future. What do you think the future of Hip-Hop will be?” We talked about the current trends in Hip-Hop, like the fusion of EDM with rap, as well as the so-called Golden Era revivalism and everything in between. He had a pretty positive outlook on where Hip-Hop is heading and for the most part I remember joining him in that vision. I started thinking about what I would say – the perfect way to approach a question that isn’t often asked: What will be Hip-Hop’s future?

But when I would sit down to write, that blinking cursor always stared back at me against the backdrop of a white page. I would jot ideas down here and there, creating a document littered with broken paragraphs; things that I wanted to say somewhere in my article, but that felt disjointed somehow. I realized that something about what my editor and I had discussed didn’t feel entirely true to me.

If you’ve read any of my stuff, you’ll notice that I like to write about Hip-Hop from a cultural perspective – trying to bring elements of what I see on my block, in my community, on the subway, in talks with my family, friends – anything where I see Hip-Hop’s subtle influence. It is a culture, after all. I realized that the positive future that I talked about with my editor didn’t seem completely aligned with what I saw on a cultural level. I also realized that people ask about the future of Hip-Hop all the time, but it’s often in what they do, not what they say. In my experience, the question, “What will be Hip-Hop’s future?” often becomes “Does Hip-Hop have a future?” One question assumes a positive outlook, the other a bleak non-existence, and both ride the same spectrum of reality. The answer, however, is yes, Hip-Hop does have a future, just not in its current form.

The question, “Does Hip-Hop have a future?” seems to be at the heart of the sentiments of people who still believe that good Hip-Hop only existed before ‘96; purveyors of the Golden-Era whose arguments are always steeped in the architecture of the art-form, the roots. The first question, “What will be Hip-Hop’s future?”, always seems to be at the heart of the sentiments of people who grew up on Hip-Hop post Golden-Era; people who are growing up in a world where the music is more accessible via digital markets and so continues to grow more dominant in its cultural influence at a faster rate. It’s that growth that’s at the center of the divide on where Hip-Hop is headed.

Allow me to borrow from the book of Lord Jamar for a second. He said that “Hip-Hop is a black art form,” and that “white people are guests in the house of Hip-Hop.” At the innermost core of that statement is fear. There’s a fear that somewhere down the line, when people are discussing Hip-Hop’s history, white people will get credit for something that was invented within black culture (see Rock n’ Roll). There’s fear when he says that Macklemore is pushing a gay agenda. There’s fear when he says that Hip-Hop is being feminized (despite the fact that it’s still very misogynistic). While I do find some of his feelings justified, and most largely unjustified, Lord Jamar’s sentiments are not new, especially among people who were around during Hip-Hop’s conception. There was a status-quo, a deeply ingrained set of rules from which you did not deviate as someone who indulged in the art form. They were canon, and they are no longer relevant.

There’s fear.

For an art form that started in the streets, as a direct result of the pain that came from living in those streets, there’s a deep fear that Hip-Hop is changing to the point where it will leave behind the streets from which it is rooted. But when you see how internationally and culturally integrated it has become in its forty years of existence, you realize that it can’t possibly stay the same.

Remember, it wasn’t that long ago that Hip-Hop’s looming death was the trendy topic around the proverbial water-cooler and inside rap circles. The blame was put on people who pushed its commercial appeal over the roots of its street-wise explorations, and anything after ‘96 started the descent of its six foot journey into the ground. Its death was blamed on the South for introducing crunk and snap music, allegedly diluting Hip-Hop’s boom-bap origins in favor of something with more club appeal. Now it’s blamed on skinny jeans and soft rappers (see Drake). Then, as well as now, the feelings behind the statement, “Hip Hop is dead,” becomes synonymous with “Hip-Hop is not what I think it should be.”

The landscape is changing. While arguments about the message in the music being diluted in favor of commercial appeal does not fall on deaf ears, we’re entering a turning point where only having mainstream appeal or only having underground appeal is becoming a vastly outdated game plan. Technology and the internet has provided so much access to music that the market is becoming saturated with anyone who ever had the slightest inclination of being a rapper or producer. If you’re still complaining that there’s nothing good on the radio, then you need to catch up. If you’re still complaining that there are no good artists, then you’re not looking in the right places. If you’re still pushing your CD on the corner for five bucks a pop, then you may have missed the boat entirely.

The problem is not one of there not being enough. It’s one of there being too much, without any balance at the forefront. Hip-Hop is actually more progressive than it’s ever been, but like with anything that’s going to bring the good with the bad and sometimes change that we don’t like. But for anything to progress, it has to change. Without change, the Golden-Era would have never existed. Without change, Hip-Hop would have never been born.

Hip-Hop has a future, but it will not be the future that most envisioned in its boom-bap days. As a genre of music, it is versatile and can merge with other genres of music seamlessly. Kendrick Lamar’s performance with Imagine Dragons at the Grammys echoed the spirit of Run DMC joining forces with Aerosmith almost thirty years ago. As a culture, Hip-Hop has spread too far and become too diverse to remain in the hands of any one group of people and it will continue to flourish beyond street corners and project windows. That doesn’t mean, however, that it will not continue to have its roots there. What we’re really saying is that Hip-Hop has its roots in pain, and if that’s the determining, relatable factor, then it will always have a future. What exactly that future is remains to be seen.

Tags : DrakeKendrick LamarLord JamarMacklemoreRun DMC
Kia

The author Kia

Kia is an artist, comic book lover, and hip-hop enthusiast currently living in NYC. She has always been fascinated by the art of rhyming and meticulous wordplay and shares her passion for art and hip-hop by writing about both on her blog, Spray Paint and Ink Pens. She is also a contributing writer for The Hip Hop Speakeasy.