Music is the primary avenue through which most people connect with the Hip Hop culture. Therefore, I want to further explain one thing before we get into Lessons from Hip Hop. Yesterday, I posted a picture of a billboard that said: Hip Hop Rots Your Brain. I posted that because I believe a lot of people think that, but I believe it’s because they don’t complete understand Hip Hop, and instead they are usually referring to Rap.
I’ll say at times, “TV Rots your Brain.” Which also is a poor explanation of terms. What I mean is mindless TV watching, commercials, and many movies, shows and sitcoms are not healthy for you. However TV also has a lot of benefits, there are some powerful shows, educational videos, movies and more that are quite useful uses of TV.

Hip Hop ≠ Rap. Rap is a musical genre under the umbrella of Hip Hop. The reason I’m trying to make this distinction is that a lot of folks, from all walks of life, tend to misunderstand this. They equate ‘gangsta rap’ (a term often used to refer to the rap music with the negative lyrics) with all other aspects of Hip Hop Culture. This causes folks to have negative views of anyone they see wearing their pants low, listening to music with a Hip Hop Beat, or wearing their hat to the side (and, for many, any young black male they see).

Hip Hop > Rap. That is to say there is more to Hip Hop then the negative lyrics people have dismissed. That isn’t to say that rap is not important, does not have value, or does not have a role, but simply that it is important for those who don’t realize it to recognize that Hip Hop is more then just the rap lyrics they have dismissed. Hip Hop really is a culture. There is multiple art forms, attitudes, styles, products, values and forms to Hip Hop. And there is a lot of power behind it.

This is my second appeal to give Hip Hop a chance. I don’t know if this was adequate in laying the ground work to talk about Hip Hop, but it was my attempt. I’m not completely sure of my audience here, and I wonder how many are aware of, a part of, knowledgeable of or interested in Hip Hop culture. My hopes is that you’ll listen and interact with an open mind to some of the lessons I have learned from Hip Hop.

I’ve wanted to write a few post concerning Hip-Hop recently, but have hesitated because I’m not sure that this is the proper audience to be directing them to. No offense to you, readers, but there are some conversations I don’t think fit in this setting. Don’t worry though, I think we can talk about Hip-Hop a little bit, and so what I’m going to try and do is write a couple post ‘about’ first and then maybe, once we’ve built some understanding and respect, we can hear ‘from.’ I’m not sure this will be all that cohesive so I might as well just jump into it.

The first distinction that needs to be made is “Hip Hop” is more then what you might see on MTV. I would argue Hip-Hop is an entire culture, embraced mostly by the younger generation, but spanning all races and economic classes. Hip Hop can be considered a musical genre, but it is bigger then that. An extremely brief history: originally Hip Hop involved DJs, MCs, Break dancers and graffiti artist, all a part of what made the hip hop culture. Now it includes clothing styles, language, and styles. Unfortunately, most people write it all off with the parental advisory album or video they pass by at the store. But Hip Hop is much bigger then that and it is a forced to be reckoned with. One someone references “bling” it is more then likely they took that from Hip hop culture. When Karl Rove dances to a rap about himself, he is embracing (or at least trying to embrace) Hip Hop.

Now, to the musical genre. Hip Hop as a musical Genre should be distinguished from Rap. There are a lot of different explanations, and if someone has written off the whole “gangsta rappers” thing as evil and dangerous it’s hard to understand. Basically the type of music that tends to glorify drugs, sex, violence and materialism is Rap (50 cent, TI, Young Jeezy, Snoop Dogg and more). The definition of rap is more about the style of music, but I point out the content because that’s what most people know about and have written off. The Hip Hop genre tends to be more intellectual and often provides social commentary and challenging lyrics (Artist in this category include Mos Def, Common, Talib Kweli).

What’s the point? Hopefully you made it this far and enjoyed your two paragraph introduction to Hip Hop. For those who know and understand this subject a lot more, I’m sorry those paragraphs didn’t do it justice; and for those who hadn’t a clue, sorry I couldn’t have explained it quicker. The point of the introduction was to say that Hip-Hop is powerful, it is more then the violence glorifying lyrics you despise, and if your going to work with kids, have any kids, know any kids, you might want to give it some more of your thoughts and time.

That’s a good enough start for now. I’ll be touching on this topic this week a little more and hopefully we can create some health discussion around it.