B-Boys in the Burbs?

I don't get it. Why do suburban kids LOVE hip-hop? Is it because it portrays a lifestyle they know nothing about? Is it the "machoness" of it? Is it the style or language of the performers? Does the substantial rise in popularity of a now 40+ year-old genre have a greater cultural significance? Or am I overreacting?

Whatever the reason, one thing is for certain... affluent suburban kids, a large percentage of which are white, LOVE hip-hop! It seems like the more inane, boastful, violent, misogynistic or homophobic the music is the more it sells. This bothers me because I am a fan of hip-hop.

Though there is still pretty good stuff coming out these days (Blackalicious, Jurassic 5, Immortal Technique, etc) it is WAY underground! In the 80s and early 90s there was plenty of thoughtful and artistic mainstream hip-hop. The stuff kids consider to be real hip-hop today is the stuff I take issue with. The Billboard's list of top rap songs is loaded with offensive, obnoxious and ostentatious 'music'. I challenge anyone to read the lyrics to the songs on this list monthly. They rarely move out of the realm of macho violence...

My first tape was RUN-DMC's Raising Hell. This is the one that ends with 'Proud To Be Black'. I was about eight years old. Even if the word fuck wasn't in the song twice I would have gotten its importance. I remember asking my mom who Harriet Tubman and Jesse Owens were because of this song. I graduated to Young MC and Eric B. & Rakim and Slick Rick. Then in middle school I had Tribe and De La Soul tapes. High school brought The Fugees and Digable Planets. There were others, but my point is the lyrics in a random song by one of these groups are vastly different than the Top 40 today.

Sure, Young MC got famous with a song about picking up a girl, but his video didn't show him swiping a credit card through her ass crack! Slick Rick had songs about the ladies too, but despite their somewhat macho lyrics they fell short of being full-on vulgar.

Ok. A very long story cut very short... the white-controlled music industry creates, hypes, markets and distributes shockingly awful 'music' with socially dangerous themes! The suburban white kids who make up the majority of the market are fed consistently reinforced negative stereotypes of black men and women. The genre of hip-hop is a stunning musical revelation with endless possibilities. It is a shame that the thoughtful stuff gets sidelined and that the young black artists that create it have their music dubbed as 'backpacker' hip-hop or 'hippie-hop'!