Greg Tate on the 30th Anniversary of Hip-Hop

and he's absolutely OTM. people have been saying this for a while.

tate is great.

Sure, but really, what could be expected of what began first and foremostly as party music? It was picked up as a political messenger for a time (black CNN and all), but c'mon now...

people have been saying this for a while.
So Tate brings nothing new to the table at a point where the music is totally fucking boombastically hot? He's got nothing to say other than, "where's about the message, the black nationalism, the politics and populism"? I see his point, but doesn't he ever just want to party like everyone else?

How fiery and forward-leaning he is.

Sure, but really, what could be expected of what began first and foremostly as party music? It was picked up as a political messenger for a time (black CNN and all), but c'mon now..."

its a bit naieve, yes. but that period from the late 80s through to the mid 90s is generally regarded as hip hop's peak, for right or wrong. at the end of the day though, its music, not a political party.

"people have been saying this for a while.
So Tate brings nothing new to the table at a point where the music is totally fucking boombastically hot? He's got nothing to say other than, "where's about the message, the black nationalism, the politics and populism"? I see his point, but doesn't he ever just want to party like everyone else?"

please. hip hop was tremendously hot in the 80s and 90s too. if youre only paying attention to the biggest songs, then yeah, it must seem at its peak, but while someone like jadakiss has one or two hot singles, his albums are crud.

greg isnt a fun-hater, he just wants some balance. im sure he loves party rap as much as anyone, he just doesnt want it reduced to lowest common denominator status, which a lot of hip hop subscribes too, rather too gladly.

90% OTM.

Why should hip-hop, let alone any genre of music, be held to this standard? Rail all you want, but music a fucking commodity, no matter how much it means to any one individual.

his voice of dissent amongst millions blissfully insisting the opposite does make him fiery and forward leaning.

this describes me fine and i'm perfectly okay with that. to the rest of those releases caught in the rut mentioned above, i guess i'm ignorant of it. my statement was made with blinders, but i don't retract it. blissful ignorance, i suppose...

Metal, for one example, seems to me to be refocusing on core values - bands like Mastodon and Lamb Of God and High On Fire are doing the best possible work while imposing strict rules and limitations on themselves. All their records are ways of saying "this is metal, that is not metal," without being stupid about it like Manowar. (Manowar always picked the worst/lamest/most cartoonish things about metal to lionize.) But pop isn't about that - it's all kid-in-a-candy-store, wanting everything at once instead of achieving pleasure through discipline. And hip-hop is the dominant pop music form - well, hip-hop and mall country, which is just as psychotically self-indulgent and self-absorbed. So what's to be done?

(phew I knew that American Studies degree would help me one day)

Has Tate ever heard Kwelikanyelifimmortaltechniquemursmosnaszionietcetera? Bling may be the dominant belief system at this particular cultural moment, but heretics ain't too hard to find.

haha man I wish I knew! This very question has been buggin me for the better half of a year (I think I even started a thread about it once). If history is any indication, we should be paying attention to what poor black kids are doing with freshly affordable technology, but nothing (apart from what's already instantly recognizable as hip-hop) seems to really be happening there. But I think that whatever happens, it will involve a sharp reconfiguration of methods, and yes, probably a rejection of the magpie aesthetic, something inherently minimalist with distinct boundaries. Mostly tho, I think it will require a *new way* of generating sound (a la the role of the distorted amplifier or the turntable in the past). New technologies (often plus new drugs!) = new music. What that new music will be in this particular case I have no idea. If I did I'd be doing it and not just talking about it on the internets...

and yeah theres mos, kweli etc etc but apart from maybe those two, murs, immortal technique and those guys arent being heard by anyone apart from the indie/underground/college audience these days, not 'the streets'.

and crunk isnt retro or backward looking - the sounds might be the same at times, but get low and that stuff doesnt sound like just miami bass os rick rubin beats from 84.

And therefore they're not hip hop, sez you?

Bullpucky.

Speaking of which: Tate sneers at "24 hour cable and PlayStations" as the post-millennial mass opiate ... then indicts all hip hop 'cause he dislikes the slice spoonfed him by Clear Channel?

What millions? Perhaps others choose to not belabor the obvious.

what? no one is saying that to begin with, as anyone who has ever danced to night of the living basheads, fight the power, jack of spades, my philosophy etc etc etc can tell you.

the article is great. it may be obvious, though I don't think it is to many people, because it's rarely argued that well.

I hadn't read his 'Street's Disciple' or 'Encore' reviews either.

How totally condescending. If "the People" had the right leaders, we'd all be fighting the power today *and* have kicking beats to back it up.

Consumers and politicians make choices based on their own self-interest. Deal with it.

Great. Grateful are we for Mr. Tate, who tells it straight and is only late.

I should also add entertainers to that.

And therefore they're not hip hop, sez you?"

where did i say they werent hip hop? of course they are. theyre just not shifting bootleg mix cds like g-unit in the areas where their message seems to be directed.

Or in a crate. Why did I have to prate on Tate? It was fate and he's your mate.

Ah but that's not Tate's point. He's not saying "I long for the mounds of great radical hiphop being made in the underground to proliferate across the fruited plain of Vivendi and Viacom." No, he's saying that w/o radio, TV and big money, hip hop "would cease to exist except as nostalgia." Personally I doubt it, but I can see where somebody who ignores not only the Kwelikanyelifimmortaltechniquemursmosnaszionis of the world but also the Diversedeadprezthecoupalisaulselfscientificbannerjeangraeandmores would think so.

I can't think of any period in hip-hop history when this same argument wasn't being made.

and is Shakey the only actual rockist on ILM?

Somehow I doubt it, but even if it wasn't USE NEW ARGUMENTS PEOPLE!

what the fuck ever...

Whatever dude. All songs should be about the minimum wage, because songs about the minimum wage are more important than songs about sex.

Funny but true. So absolutely OTM.

people have been saying that hip hop has been sucking since about 93/94. but each time, something has come out to shut them up. this time, im not so sure.

alex is OTM about people expecting all hip hop to be like PE. as if kool g rap, kane, et al were all doing the same thing as PE back when PE were at their peak.

I actually find it kinda refreshing. There hasn't been enough art about money.

My response was an (obviously failed) attempt at sarcasm, Alex. I agreed with your point.

"As long as it can get one person to say "Fuck rap, you can have it back" a genre is still vital.

We here at Dauphin Alex dot com note also how passing strange it would be to say "Fuck pop, you can have it back," or even for some of us to say "Fuck indie rock, you can have it back." Which leads us to a lesser proposition, or Sub Prop: Genres where ownership seems still up for debate, rather than invisible or totally visibly locked in place -- also still vital, double vital, double dutch diva vital."

overall though, i think he's maybe just like me, and since the election and everything since, just wishes the world was a different place that what it is....wishing that something would change things....because hip-hop means alot to him, he thinks that maybe hip-hop could be that thing if it were a certain way or if it were different, but i don't really believe that music - hip-hop or otherwise - can make a difference....whether or not rap is Camron or Kweli, shit has been going in the same direction....things were going to shit in the 80s when conscious rap was big, reagan and whatnot, and i don't think that hip-hop really made that much of an impact in the overall scheme of things.

I think the argument carries a little more weight than it might have in the past due to hip-hop's relatively recent uber-dominance (or descent, as Tate would have it) as an insanely ubiquitous commercial juggernaut. Yeah, hip-hop's always had the "sellout/keep it real" dynamic in action, but when yr the bully on the block the way hip-hop is now, it seems disingenuous to suggest that it somehow still needs defending from the haterz, that its still just the snot-nosed, critically maligned new kid it was in the early 80s. Things have changed. It's not that I think hip-hop has "betrayed its potential" or anything histrionic like that - I think it's SPENT its potential, and as such, find myself engaged by it less and less.

anyway, i tend to agree with shakey mo's summary of the problems hip hop is facing now. sure, theres mf doom, murs, and things like that, but a lot of that stiff is simply building on whats familiar. theres been nothing truly new or blinding in a while. and no, kanye isnt it.

FUCK POLKA, YOU CAN HAVE IT BACK!!!

well there's Jada's "Why"... that Eminem song is terrible. The Kanye album is really good, but blindingly original he's not (especially production-wise. The most fun tricks on the record - the hillbilly strings on "Workout Plan" and the sped-up vocal samples on "Thru the Wire" - sound to me like they were both borrowed wholesale from the Wu-Tang's "Reunited" and "For Heaven's Sake")

You realize this is just wrong, right? Did you sleep through the last election?

ie, DIZZEE RASCAL

yeah, "self interest" is an extremely nebulous term.

ie, DIZZEE RASCAL"

dizzee is ONE (genius) kid. the rest of grime, for the most part, doesnt really match his standards, sad to say. at least in my humble opinion it doesnt, although wiley is a genius too.

you mean replacing our ipod headphones with normal ones?

maybe greg wants a stronger 'indie rap' community...hip-hop hasn't had its punk. or maybe he wants more of them to rap to free jazz.

i'll check burnt sugar out.

I was wide awake, actually. When I drove back to Chicago through Michigan I saw two signs for the Bush campaign that summed up their appeal to voters' self-interest: "It's _your_ money afterall." and "It's about security." Both of which sum up nicely to "don't be scared, we'll protect you and your belongings." (Cheney noting "the danger is that we get hit and we get hit hard," was another nice example.)

except for those sweaters.

One time I saw an exhibit of those sweaters (maybe they are in the Permanent Collection?) hanging in the AMMI. It was sick.

who ever had this "dream" aside from a small minority of rappers and a sizable number of music critics? hip-hop is music; music is entertainment; the purpose of entertainment is to organize leisure. it can have a political dimension, but i don't see any imperative for that to be the case. its proximate activities are things like hanging out, sex, dancing. for god's sake. i think there's been an unfortunate re-writing of hip hop's history to make it seem more inherently "politicized" than is actually the case. (i.e. you hear much more about "the message" than "that's the joint.")

if hip-hop is in a poor state right now--i'm not convinced it is, but then again i'm not on top of all the stuff that's coming out to say the least--it's not because a bunch of "afrocentric," "conscious" artists need to rescue it. musical innovation trends this way and that; it doesn't often (doesn't usually) track with any obvious correlating political change.

does cosbyism entail leaning forward slightly, doing a little shuffle, and stuttering comically?

Special Ed actually did the hillbilly strings on Youngest in Charge...that was 89 (I think)...he had this song called "Ho Down" that used a square dance type fiddle sample....I always wondered if that inspired Bubba Sparxxx and Timbaland for Deliverance....

The idea that hip-hop is losing cultural irrelevency is just ridiculous.
Further, the idea that Dizzee rascal is the lone savior of hip-hop ignores all the home-grown dizzee rascals that have been changing american hip-hop while all kids w/ converses (here in the states, that is) were busy talking about grime as the saviour of hip-hop.

I don't know how anyone can argue that crunk is a regressive movement, argue that sonically it's just a repetition of the past bcuz it wears its influences on its sleeve - it's like ppl read threads on crunk and take what information they want from them (it has something to do w/ miami bass!) and then try to force it into their "hip-hop is dead" worldview (it is just repeating miami bass!)

How fucking annoying.
Seriously, you want to see some amazing hip-hop? Check out the fucking ass-shattering production lil jon dropped this year, on the trillville/scrappy record, his own solo record, and various R&B records. Or check out all the shit that's bubbling in houston (swishahouse, slim thug, mike jones, paul wall, chamillionaire, z-ro, etc. etc. etc.), and go over to governmentnames.blogspot.com and check out dlk's list of the THIRTY best Bun-B verses of the year, or check out all the shit coming out of Atlanta, with T.I. being heralded as the new Jay-Z on the cover of vibe and guys like lil weavah about to break through, never mind the fact that new orleans two biggest labels, cash money and no limit are STILL pumping out quality material...and then of course there's rick rock and the bay area's sudden rise with foundation's "hyphy," bay area legend e-40 signing to lil jon's label, memphis still has a gang of artists coming out thru hypnotized minds (lil wyte's album is pretty great) etc. etc. etc. etc. Hip-hop is dead? Fuck you.

is this a malapropism?

You know, when arguing with someone it often helps to argue against something that's actually been said rather than making up an imaginary position that makes no sense and then shouting about how stupid it is like a self-satisfied buffoon.

Here, here! Cosby's "Hooray for Salvation Army Band" is trippin' music.

You lost me here. Hate that stuff.

I haven't read a single thread (or article, or blog entry or whatever) on crunk apart from the one I started (which died a quick ten responses or less death), and the one about the shitty Village Voice review of Li'l Jon's album. I'm not subscribing to some "preconceived critical notion" cuz I just honestly do not pay attention to that shit. I bought the Li'l Jon album on my own volition cuz I think he's funny and I was curious after hearing some singles, but I just disagree with you about how it sounds - I DO hear Miami bass in this music, and I DO think it's a fun album, but ass-shattering? Groundbreaking? Nigga PLEASE. Not in the slightest. Shouted vocals, heavy metal sonics, big skittering beats = I heard it all before. Christ, the Rick Rubin production on "Quit Fuckin With Me" (a song I LIKE, btw) sounds the exact same as stuff he produced in 1987. And No Limit? Cash Money? I don't think I have to listen to you anymore if that's what you think is "saving" hip hop. so no, fuck you.

As is his Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradford Funeral & Marching Band album. Amazing stoner groove sun ra action. and i love his mid-70's rap single "Ben" as well.

im not sure thats what his argument is.

regardless of what tate is saying, fuck conscious rap - the conscious rap of the last few years has sucked. kweli is shit, mos doesnt sound like he cares about rap. most of it is lifeless. and anyway, a lot of the best hip hop hasnt always been concious or political - talk like sex is a classic but its hardly cerebral. the difference is how we, or critics, regard and canonise these records. the stooges might make something about nihilism, and have it regarded as art. lil jon does it and we call it lowering the bar, braindead, etc etc with a negative slur.

the only person listening to you are the two ass cheeks on either side of your oversized mouth.

"(also he pointed out TWO saviors so even if I was pretending like I was paying attention to what he was saying, the facts don't back up your assertion)."

who have i said is a saviour?

where? only precedents for what jon is doing that i can think of are other southern groups like three 6 mafia or oomp camp.

translation - no, grime or dizzee are not the saviour of hip hop.

x-post

Someone promptly told me to shut the fuck up and that I don't know anything about hip-hop. A very convincing argument, that...

yes, but bonecrusher, jon or banner do not sound like any of those guys. the only ones remotely similar are onyx. there are different variations of shouting!

"heavy metal sonics = pretty much any '80s Def Jam release, or any crappy nu-metal act)"

the metal thing is only on a few jon productions. download throw your hood up, which is his best album IMO, or kings of crunk to get a better idea of what hes about. crunk juice isnt his best album at all.

- "positive vibes"

Half of it sounds like sonic retreads as well (just minutely modified). Maybe non hip hop fans find grime revolutionary, or garage insiders find it a complete reinvention of the wheel, but to these (perhaps jaded) hip hop ears, it doesnt sound all that amazing.

but this thread has lost sight of the tate article, which is quite excellent.

That doesn't really solve the problem does it?

I'd vote for him.

there is no such thing as human nature, come on now.

while Bono's "awareness raising" vanity would be a likely problem, ppp, I think this would be a little different as Bono's efforts aren't tied into a sense of identity, which is what Tate says is crucial to rap.

I don't even read the posts I'm replying to, much less some whole other ARTICLE.

I've never understood this yearning for a more "pure" political hip-hop period - hip-hop was political by being itself, it is inherently political, simply because of who the dominant artists are w/in the genre. The idea that it has to be EXPLICITELY political is a different thing - and to me it sounds like ppl wish it to describe their academic views of "political" rather than speaking directly to the ppl that hip-hop generally speaks "for" - and yes, by speaking for a populist rather than political extremist group it brings up negative social content (ppl who hate on current mainstream for lack of social content and talk about the 90s golden era when jeru the damaja released "da bitchez" can keep on walking).

And in terms of political/economic influence, his complaint that white people are making money off of rap seems more off base NOW than it did in his "golden age." I mean, I remember reading an interview w/ El-P where he described his ideal business model as being master p's with no limit - where these guys w/ tattoos and gold fronts and probably no more than a high school education would watch these harvard and yale graduate music business guys come in and on beg for master p to LET them distribute no limit, simply because he'd built up a big enough empire independently.

Hip-hop as an INDUSTRY seems to thrive on "authenticity" to a large degree, so in that sense its commercial explosion may have created an alternative industry (that, like all industries works under a few very rich white ppl, but all the same) that employs a much greater number of african-americans than previous movements - that as a "culture" operating under one broad tent of "hip-hop" it allows for a much larger number of african americans to be employed and puts them in much greater control of their culture economically.

I don't think rappers preaching at their listeners is the answer.
keep in mind, for the vast majority of ppl music is entertainment.

I think music is involved in a form of CULTURAL subversion, and there are inherent positives to the fact that black culture is continually defining american culture.

rap was always a commercial entertainment form! one that evolved from other commerical entertainment forms! just because some of its practitioners and critics wished it to be something else doesn't mean it wasn't!

i think you have a good, generous take on this miccio. i have to admit i'm not too sympathetic to tate's ideas (which i have heard expressed, in slightly different forms, for over a decade now) about music being a means to revolution and revolutionary expression.

i especially don't think hip-hop deserves the burden of having to be any more "conscious" or political than, uh, disco, or techno, or country, or rock, or classical, or whatever. which means it very well has the capacity to be political in any number of ways but its essence is by no means defined, or should be defined, by a political agenda or even a vague notion of "resistance" or "revolution." (i also admit i have no problem with "capitalism" and i have a hard time taking seriously any article that uses that word as a strict pejorative.)

if tate wants to build an alternative model of entertainment then more power to him, but i don't think hip-hop needs to bear the burden of the failure to construct such an alternative any more than any other manifestation of popular culture.

i'm also troubled by the nationalistic quality of his argument.

Hm, pervertalism.

It occurs to me that while arguing for mythical purity of any sort is dire, reflexive defensive arguing for a genre or approach that is doing just fine is kinda pointless. Hip-hop hasn't won some sort of (non-existent) battle; rather, it is here and continues like so many other things. It isn't the be-all and end-all of existence no more than rock is/was, and acting like it is either in terms of lost opportunity or triumphalist ranting -- or both -- seems strange to me.

I was more responding to carping like this:

hip hop's dead, there's nowhere for it to go now. good piece.

Give me SOME credit.

how all these expectations of political preaching got loaded onto hip-hop's back as its burden to carry throughout its existence.

...and replace it with many -- if not every -- popular musical, hell every *art form*, and see how history repeats itself in the discourse.

And when I went on my "rant" i don't see how i was being "triumphalist," I was just pointing out that I think the hip-hop-is-dead arguments are really myopic. And I don't see how I'm wrong to argue this.

You're missing the general point, that in the European-American experience of at least this past century and quite possibly well before that, nearly all art forms -- whether from the start, wherever or whatever or whenever that was, or somewhere along the way -- get burdened down with a putative need to be relevant, to 'say something.' That at some point the idea that an art form *must* be informative, truth-telling, 'creative' in certain specific standards, and that some sort of golden age has passed when the moment was missed and now all we're left with is the ruins because everyone is only about cash. In that there are specifics as to how those expectations were loaded onto hip-hop, there's historical curiosity and context to be found, true, but that they were loaded in the first place is utterly unsurprising. Thus my lack of surprise over Tate's take *and* the reactions to it.

i think this statement is way too sweeping. certainly a lot of genres have borne with their "new-ness" a sense of heightened expectations which often included an expectation of political commitment or relevance, but to say that *all* genres have worked this way is to verge on banality.

i think the expectations people like tate bring to hip-hop aren't too surprising *because of* the nature of hip-hop's birth and evolution, the role of low-cost (accessible) technology and lack of formal musical training as a prerequisite, its early domination by young blacks (and the continued and complex hegemony of blacks as hip-hop artists, stray exceptions granted), etc. that doesn't mean that i can entirely accept tate's attitude or think it's justified, but it's understandable why it (and attitudes like it) would become high-profile, while those expecting, say, country music to become some kind of vehicle for political empowerment and change are shall we say in the margins.

The banality is more the eternal agonizing over what 'art,' in general, is meant to be rather than what it is. What it is, ultimately, is something that I think will resist easy description, positive or negative or both, and what it is *for the individual* can change -- I will not say 'can and will,' but the 'can' part must not be denied.

I think this makes it even more explicit.

Neither side of which questions the underlying assumption that nobody's making rap music with explicit lyrical messages about change, empowerment, identity, revolution or what have you like they did back in the goode olde days of PE and KRS - which claim I contend is hooey on several levels.

tate LOVES outkast, he doesnt ignore them.

If anything it seems to me that rather than being "spread too thin" it is in fact proving itself entirely adaptable to the purposes of the people it appeals to worldwide - and that its ultimately lower-class folk origins and lack of a sort of "moral core" that would attract the "educated" classes keeps it a folk art rather than blunting its edge and importance? It seems to me that there is an element of anti-"lowest common denominator" about tate's piece that rubs me the wrong way, because it was the "lowest common denominator" that created it in the first place.

Ultimately the level of politicization relies on the people who want to make change in each subsequent generation - i don't see how capitalism can be targeted just because from the beginning the culture's commercial exploitation was inevitable, you know? It seems to me that the politics have to work through subversion rather than working "outside" this system.

Furthermore, while the pursuit of money certainly has an important part of current hip-hop, to reduce it to simple greed seems to limit, in my mind, the ideas they are arguing.

I'm sorry my ideas are a little rushed i'm on my lunch break and the computers here log us out every 10 minutes - i'll try and make some more cogent points later.

I will say though, the more i hear about jeff's book the more i can't wait to read it.

i cant wait to read jeff's book. although, im wary of any academic treatise of hip hop.

I should have explained my specific reference. In his Eminem Encore review he commented that Em was hip-hop's only free man, ignoring the fact that Andre and Big Boi are trippin' the cosmos while going Diamond.

anyway, deej. i'm hesitant to answer some of yr good questions cuz i'd be taking on someone else's argument, and i'm afraid i'll misrepresent them or blow it entirely. but i understand tate's feeling, it's something i've felt with many bands/performers in the past. the way you embrace some flawed but promising band, cheering them along and even collaborating with them only to be dismayed by what they have evolved into. it's not entirely rational and even, in a way, conceited.

But yeah

I dunno; wasn't there a general critical consensus that rock had lost its way around 1972 or so (with Lester Bangs fighting against it, of course)?

On the other hand ...

We'll tell them how once upon a time there was this marvelous art form where the Negro could finally say in public whatever was on his or her mind in rhyme ...
I'm far from a hip-hop expert, and I know the playing field isn't really equal in America, but isn't this truer now than ever? Seems the music is a symptom, and blaming it isn't helping anything.

-- m. (mitchnet70NOSPA...) (webmail), January 6th, 2005 11:18 AM. (mitchlnw) (link)

(i think i know what you mean, but i'm not certain)

-- m. (mitchnet70NOSPA...) (webmail), January 6th, 2005 11:22 AM. (mitchlnw) (link)

er, neither am i? i have an off and on flu, so my posts are liable to be erratic. i guess what i meant is that because of its populist/uniquely african-american origins, its privileging of rhetorical style, rap seems to have a lot of natural affinities w/a certain kind of politics. but i think a mistake is made when people translate those affinities as meaning that hip-hop either is or should be overtly political in its essence and is somehow "unfulfilled" when it fails to manifest that.

although tate is talking as much about alternative systems of music production/dissemination/etc. as about political rhetoric. as far as that goes, i don't really see hip-hop having more possibilities than most other genres at all.

Bullshit: http://www.robertchristgau.com/xg/pnj/pjres80.php

everything IS political, duh.

Polite way of putting it, but color me surprised regardless - i swear i read that somewhere. I think my point still stands, though.

"Greg Tate is an Old Man."

the whole white old boomer rocker vs. white young rap fan was really brought home for me recently. It was xmas eve, and i was over at the house of some friends of my family. The dad, who has pretty okay taste in rock (he's more up on stuff going on now than most 50+ dudes I know, he's a great guitarist, and his taste in old stuff is pretty broad), showed me his old stereo and turntable, he was psyched that they still work. We listened to a couple albums, and I picked out a Brothers Johnson one to listen to. His son comes in the room and the dad says something about "back in the 70s black people made great music, not that rap crap you listen to." I was so fucking embarassed. I mean I know this guy is deep down an eastern kentucky redneck moved to the city and gotten "some culture," but still.

Also, I liked Ned's point about western art upthread. It's interesting that no matter what, we sort of ascribe these western values to things (paging Geir! uh no just kidding). One of the things I like about a lot of non-western musics is how so many of them are political yet tied into just basic life kinda stuff - like ragas that are only supposed to be played at certain times of the day. I was thinking earlier today about how a lot of hip-hop is just awesome late-night party music, and not so interesting other times, as I was walking down Houston and some dude was blasting L'il Jon out his truck. It just seemed so dorky.

Better or simply different?

Tate to hip-hop: "You guys should be role models."
Defensive hip-hoppers to Tate: "I'm not a fucking role model. Shut up and get low!"

i, somewhat predictably, don't like this line of thought much at all

I do see political potential for hip-hop and absolutely I think social responsibility - particularly as it relates to misogyny and homophobia - could be only a good thing. But that doesn't mean I have to like his condecension.

i, somewhat predictably, don't like this line of thought much at all

sorry mitch, I certainly don't endorse it as being "what everyone should think" or something. It's just an opinion, almost more of a gut feeling to me.

Also, listening to hip-hop in a city is redundant (unless like at a basement party or something). It sounds better in a car on a long country drive. Heh.

Two points that intrigue me:

1. If you toted up sales figures for "political" (whatever) hip hop today, I wonder how that would compare to scans for PE. Point being, there may be MORE "political" hip hop today, even if none of it is getting over in (the oh-five equivalent of) a Spike Lee joint.

2. Was Greg Tate once the drummer in the rock band Gay Dad?

I think PE's highest charting single was in the 50s.

-- Nowhere in the piece does Tate say that hip hop of any kind is dead. That was said by one person on this thread.

Tate to hip-hop: "You guys should be role models."

How totally condescending. If "the People" had the right leaders, we'd all be fighting the power today *and* have kicking beats to back it up.

-- Nowhere in the piece does Tate say rappers should be role models or political leaders.

You're right--Tate just says "there's really nothing to celebrate about hiphop right now but the moneyshakers and the moneymakers". It "ain't about to do a goddamn thing other than send more CDs and T-shirts across the water". And without the promised reward of bucks or bling, "hiphop as we know it would cease to exist, except as nostalgia."

Doesn't much seem like he thinks there's a living, breathing, shit-kicking hip hop concerned with the community and doing it for love. And if you're not alive, well ...

Oh no!

Absolutely gutted to learn (from a trusted source) that Greg Tate has left this dimension. What a hero he’s been — a fiercely original critical voice, a deep musician, an encouraging big brother to so many of us. Total shock. pic.twitter.com/JMzCnj3Asb

— Nate Chinen (@natechinen) December 7, 2021