Hip-Hop Turns 30 - Whatcha Celebratin' For?

Greg Tate packs so many jewels in his 2004 article entitled, "Hip-Hop Turns 30 - Whatcha Celebratin' For?" that it would be enough to make Liberace hate on him. I won't recount every nugget in this diamond-studded medallion, but I will touch on some of them, which I believe deserve an honorable mention.

"The moment "Rapper's Delight" went platinum, hiphop the folk culture became
hiphop the American entertainment-industry sideshow."

In my opinion, Tate is saying this was the moment HH lost it's virginity. No longer pure and unadulerated, the corporate sharks smelled blood in the music waters and decended upon HH like an abandon baby seal. The artform we once came to know and love was history.

"Hiphop's ubiquity has created a common ground and a common vernacular for Black folk from 18 to 50 worldwide."

One one really thinks about it (and prior to taking Intro to HipHop Culture, I never gave it much thought), Hip-Hop has fostered a sort of brotherhood similar to some of the world's religions. No other music seems comparable to HH in it's following. Interestingly, many of HH adherents in America are oblivious to this fact. I personally think the powers that be perfer it this way. The would hate for a kid in the inner-city to know that kids world-wide hang on his every word. That, as the crooked cop in the movie Malcolm X said, is too much power for one man to have.

HH is "parasitically feeding off the host of the real world's people—urbanized and institutionalized—whom it will claim till its dying day to "represent."

This is an undeniable fact, which every HH Head ought to know. The suits behind HH are making billions off the pitiful plight of the inner-city down-trodden, and aren't giving a red cent back to these very people who belt out these bars filled with blues. For this reason, we need to support every Emcee who ventures out to start his own record label, but on one condition: that he earmark some of his profit for the betterment of the hood.

I could go on and on, but I'll end this article review by highlighting the best passage, which comes near the very end. It goes...

"Twenty years from now we'll be able to tell our grandchildren and great-grandchildren how... fools thought they were celebrating the 30th anniversary of hiphop...when they were really presiding over a funeral."

Rest in peace, HH.