What Happened To Hip Hop?

Title says it all. (Except the word fuck.) What the fuck happened to hip hop? Was it always like this? You remember the old people in your days as a kid callin' your music you listen to garbage. Have I just become that? Or has the music really changed?

I feel like the essense of hip hop is lost, and you could ask 100 people what does hip hop mean, and you'll get 100 different answers from "a music genre, rap, poetry, gangstas, street music, bling bling, black music, a ghetto thing, a fad, crap, great, awful" ect... Whatever they wanna say, but how many people are gonna say a culture or a lifestyle. Or a way to make something from nothing. No instruments, just some vinyl records and a couple turntables. Can't sing? Oh well we can rhyme and rap over the looped drum beats. American innovation at its best.
Hip hop comes from soul music. So that's where it must come from in every person in order to be authentic. If you're not already living and thinking about hip hop 24/7, eating, breathing, shittin' out hip hop, then you're not qualified to represent it, or even benefit from it. I'm starting to think you're not even qualified to participate, but I guess you gotta start somewhere, and in that factor, hip hop's always been open to anyone who wants to learn the culture.
To me, hip hop is the only "place" in the world you can be yourself. You can be any race, man or woman, young, old, from up north, down south, whatever. As long as you respect the culture, learn where it originated from, and maintain the intended essense, while bringing your own unique flavor, adding to the mixing pot, then of course everyone is welcome.
But when certain individuals, companies, or groups use hip hop as a way of financial or social gain without giving back to the ones who made the music, then there's a problem. Why is hip hop not majority black owned, when it was black Americans who made the culture and music that everyone around the world is now "trying" to be a part of? Since when did a rapper try and fit in? You either do or you don't. You either are or you aren't. You belong in hip hop, or you don't. For most, no matter how hard you try, you can't.
This isn't necessarily racial, but it can be. If you don't want to fit into black culture, get out of hip hop. I'm not black, but as a mixed individual (Japanese, Puerto Rican, Russian, Portuguese - Mom's side and English, Irish - Dad's side. Always just considered it white, but recently asked about lineag on his side) it irritates me when people dismiss certain racial groups for the credit they deserve.
You wouldn't tell the chef at the Chinese restaurant his food is just "food" or tell the Japanese sensei that karate is an "everyone" thing. No, you learn its origins and respect it. At the same time, anyone can participate if they want to. They say its racist to call hip hop a black genre cause white people feel left out. but they used to call it "black music" to diss it at first. Now they want a piece of it 'cause they see how profitable and how "cool" it is. Being black doesn't make you hip hop automatically either. Some have lost their original soul trying to fit into America. When America and the whole world wants to fit into hip hop.
Hip hop sets the tone of the world from fashion to every other type of music.
Rappers don't need to change themselves to fit in anywhere. That's what hip hop is. being yourself. Now that should be simple, but everyone in today's world, hip hop especially, is trying to put on a "real" suit. That's not how it works. I didn't name myself Phil 4Ril. The streets did. Aka Hip hop did.


So the lesson: Listening to rap doesn't make you hip hop, just like listening to a couple country records doesn't mean you're qualified to rodeo at the local saloon or ranch or wherever they hang out. The barn?
Why is it that every race on the planet can keep what they culturally own and represent it, but anything black made especially music gets taken away and labeled just music. (Let's go down the list of American Black made music: funk, blues, soul, gospel, rock, house, bass, jazz, R&B, hip hop, pop, country, yes even country, the list can go-go on. Doowop. Even latin music was made from the black residents of the areas and reggae was influenced by the islanders working in the south US and bringing back and mimicking the R&B records they heard there.) Go tell the guy in New Delhi his music isn't Indian, or the Korean to take K from Pop. That's right you wouldn't because you have no problem with any other race owning anything.
The everyone-ness of hip hop has watered it down to a bland generic genre instead of a real culture. People are afraid to represent what they are anymore to fit into the bigger picture. But we already fit in no matter what, as we are all pieces to this puzzle. Don't be afraid to keep hip hop, unapologetically hip hop and black. If any of this offended you, good, then it was intended for you. If you agree, good. It was also intended for you.

And this is not just a shot at white people but everyone. To the black community: take what belongs to you. Stop letting everyone else own what you create. If the black community as whole, said no non-black rappers, I would have to respect it. But that's never been the case. 3rd Bass - (Jewish member, white member), 2 Live Crew (Kid Fresh Ice aka the Chinaman R.I.P.) and so on from countless Caribbean and Latino rappers and Djs to the Irish hip hop group House of Pain, its always been a melting pot.
But now every race, not just whites, have taken hip hop as "theirs". You hear claims of Latino or Caribbean origins, when none of the original break beats were from either of those cultures' music. It's all R&B black artists like James Brown. Who was already playing break beats in the park? Black americans. Who wanted to join after it got popular, everyone else. Jamaicans joined as the first guests as they were living the closest, then the Puerto Ricans, but be honest, do you hear reggae and say that's hip hop? No. Do you hear hip hop and say that's Jamaican? No. Salsa music? No. There's no connection culturally. Of course crossovers have happened, but what genre hasn't mashed with hip hop in an attempt to use it for their gain.
Latinos  can be hip hop when they want. Never would they be denied at a hip hop show or club. "We're all brothers" they'll say and then later take off the fitted hat and go to the latin bar, where the black guy will get denied at the door or get funny looks all nite no matter what he wears. You know your latina Grandma and probly your Latino parents can't stand rap. Black grannies love hip hop. Sounds funny, but what I'm saying its a generational thing, even knowing the samples. The Asian store owner will follow the black customer, but yet the Asian with 100 tattoos and a race car parked out front is fine walking around, no problem. Asians and latinos (and blacks too) are brainwashed into thinking lighter is better. (Whites know this is false or else they wouldn't be trying to get "tan".) They will befriend a white person before one of their own race that is considered "too" dark skinned. They will also envy the lightest of their race and befriend whites before them as well. They will deny their black ancestry when they want and use it when beneficial. Is it that colonization has left a subliminal admiration toward the white Spaniards? Why are some Mexicans more allied with Aryans in jail and at constant war with the blacks? Just a question I can't answer, only ask.
White people will listen to hip hop at a party, but will cross the street from a mile away if a black guy walks in their direction. Unless they hear his African or Jamaican accent first. "Oh, he's ok, he's not really black." Jamaicans sometimes call the black Americans "Yanks" and Africans call the black Americans "Akata" separating themselves from the black community, not the other way around. Again, not trying to make division, just telling it how I see it. Sometimes you have to know you're sick to know how to cure it. And not all. My good homie Chagga was born in Tanzania and he had to adapt to the black american way and embraced it while also embracing his African roots . I've heard his grandpa refer to himself as black saying its not easy as a blackman in America. Some Africans, however will say I'm not black I'm African.
Final lesson: People are quick to take from hip hop and take from the Black Americans who made this genre and who were nice enough to share it (Thank you). Anything pro-black is labeled racist. Thinking that tho, is actually what's racist. Black Americans can never have anything. Seems like nobody respects the Blackman, even his own.
My last opinion: Hip Hop has been "white-washed" in an attempt to keep Black Americans from achieving success and taking away the last pure black music genre. But its more than a genre. It's a lifestyle. Its fashion. I don't see hip hop heads wearing tie-dye and fishnet tank tops like a rasta, but I see islanders all around the world wearing NBA jerseys and fitted hats. (Me born born in Hawaii technically an islander, come back to the mainland wearing slippers (flip-flops to some and the homies laugh at it, just what it is.) Every old white dude has on Nikes but who made that popular? Not even sports can sell more sports jerseys and hats than hip hop can. Every white girl wants to twerk. Every race wants to say the "N word". But nobody really wants to be one.
Racism existed before hip hop, much more than today, and it was the originators of hip hop who made something that brought everyone together and allowed everyone to be part of something in unity. Now the originators are being phased out. If you don't think hip hop will be the next rock and roll... Look around. It already has.

 

If this made you uncomfortable, mad, or upset... Good. I think only people who have something to hide are afraid to talk about race.
We're all running in the same direction anyway if you think about it.