Chrisco Spins

I realized something the other day. A relationship I’ve been involved in for 25ish years has officially come to an end. I’m out of love. All that’s left is the bitterness. Ironically enough, it took an awful movie to make me fully realize my situation. Thank you “Brown Sugar.”

Now this travesty of a movie stars Sanaa Lathan as a magazine editor who starts all her interviews with “So, when did you fall in love with hip-hop?” Taye Diggs is the record producer who loves the music but hates the industry. Oh… and Mos Def is in it. You remember Mos Def? Possible the best modern MC walking the planet who has for all intents and purposes deliberately turned his back on a genre and a culture that stands in direct opposition to everything that makes him great. Sorry for the tangent. I know, “Brown Sugar” is a terrible movie. We’ve established that. Now bear with me.

Watching this awful movie, made me realize that I’ve fallen way out of love with hip-hop. I’m not even mad when people talk negatively about it. I don’t even try to defend it anymore. People call it homophobic and I nod. People say it denigrates women and I nod. People say it ruins our children and reluctantly… I nod. As a matter of fact, forget love… I don’t even like hip-hop anymore.

Is it ironic that I’m out of love at the same point where the “artists” who create hip-hop are more financially successful than ever? I don’t think so. Because despite all the money, no one is about anything anymore. There were always money hungry rappers, but despite Dame Dash’s mantra… no one needs “all the money.” Where are the guys with an agenda? Where are the guys giving back to their neighborhoods? Hell, forget Thanksgiving turkey give-aways, “hip-hop” now has enough money to fund hospitals, public housing, scholarship funds… where are those things?

I could just be an old man. I’ll give you that. But it doesn’t feel the same. Every artist should know the business side, but now hip-hop has more businessmen than it does artists. Everyone can break down a royalty rate, but no one cares about putting changes in their production or variation in their vocals.

And have I mentioned we’ve reached a new level of embarrassing ourselves in public? Flavor Flav is banging his third season of skanks and making Chuck D ashamed they were ever in the same group. MC Serch and the Ego Trip guys are satirizing the culture for fun and profit on VH1. And somewhere Kool Herc is holding his head in his hands and crying.

I say all that, but have to take a step back and say that I still enjoy some songs when I hear them. Rick Ross’ new single got me excited. But I no longer enjoy the music as part of a love for the greater culture that spawned it. Mostly because I don’t think that culture exists anymore. Hip-hop culture was born of a certain era. Unfortunately, I’m beginning to think that era is over.

There will be rappers I like in the future. There will be songs that I enjoy. I’ll see a new dance or hear a new hook and I’ll get an echo of the love I used to have. But just like bumping into an ex-girlfriend, those echoes will be more and more faint. It makes me a little sad to think that at some point hip-hop will be reduced to the equivalent of “you remember old girl… what was her name?”

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 12:43 pm and is filed under Entertainment, Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.