What happened to socially/politically concious rappers

no one has addressed the diversity in hip hop that existed in the late 80s to 90s. That choice doesn't exist anymore. You could choose back then who you wanted to aspire to from KRS one to Too Short, Slick Rick or Chuck D.

And no one mentioned crack epidemic. The nihilism themes that came with that. The crack culture fueled a lot of the dark cheap materialism we see today dominating rap lyrics.

http://conversationsofchange.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/head_in_the_sand-461x307.jpg

Why frame it as "no one mentioned x or y"? Just make your point.

Btw rap is pretty damn diverse now but you'd have to listen to it to know that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2VG53RIJ50

To be fair to RT, moaning about how hip hop was better bitd has been a fundamental part of hip hop culture since at least the mid-90s.

yo RT how come the only west coast artist on your list is NWA and why are Last Poets and Gil Scott on there they are not from the 80s/90s

Tell me about the time before money flooded into hip-hop Grandpa Tanuki

crack epidemic impact is totally overblown imo, coke had been part of hip since the beginning - Kurtis Blow, T-Ski Valley etc. which is not to say that crack didn't decimate black communities, just that its preponderance as lyrical content was driven by commercial factors (white kids in the suburbs eating up gangsta braggadocio), not "realism" or "reportage"

no one has addressed the diversity in hip hop that existed in the late 80s to 90s. That choice doesn't exist anymore. You could choose back then who you wanted to aspire to from KRS one to Too Short, Slick Rick or Chuck D.

And no one mentioned crack epidemic. The nihilism themes that came with that. The crack culture fueled a lot of the dark cheap materialism we see today dominating rap lyrics.

The likes of Common, Mos Def, Talib, Roots and Dad Prez were actually second wave conscious rap as a rebound to the crack nihilist rap that was beginning to dominate.

Now we're past that 2nd wave, but it essentially just lost out to the even more strongly materialistic cheap kills lyrics that even underground is dominated by.

Is there a 3rd wave coming? I can't see it, maybe ferguson etc will spawn something. But the rappers I see with that the most have been likes of Big Boi and Q Tip.

to say that there's no diversity in hip hop is just I can't even

I mean, a gay transexual rapper has a fucking cable TV show

but keep repeating it, maybe it will come true for you

ok, i feel like i have to squint hard to buy into the premise of the OP.

maybe less conscious rap in heavy rotation R&B and rap radio than in the past (a circumscribed past), but elsewhere?

seems to me that rap at the local, grassroots level in North America is as politically conscious as ever, and with a greater proportion of females (and with them feminist content) than ever.

seems to me that the continuing vitality of hiphop world-wide, and in multiple vernacular languages, is not only explicitly but inherently political, i.e., as a megaphone used by marginalized youth to tell their own stories in their own (maligned) vernacular.

i would almost flip the question: what is it that permits explicitly political content to succeed commercially in popular music, when it does so? to me it's not surprising that there would be a natural waning of the political in a popular style of music. as in other arts, it's HARD to consistently convey social critique in a manner both authentic and viscerally compelling, without listener fatigue settling in. Shit, the evening news -a form of entertainment after all - knows this well. Rare is the story where inner-city issues or constructive initiatives are featured. Nah, it's the yellow ribbon that attracts the cameras (and eyeballs, apparently). Sex, violence, fantasies of wealth are always an easy sell. They are also probably easier to work with, as lyrical material.

We've seen this phenomenon in rock, jazz, folk, soul, and many other musical styles, and it's no wonder that hip-hop is not immune. What I still think is worth noticing and appreciating is the extent to which hip-hop maintains an edge over most other musics as a vessel for the social and the political. That it has ebbed somewhat on my radio dial seems like a more ephemeral concern.

http://i.imgur.com/chMMFt3.jpg

a pregnant south asian woman rapped at the Grammy awards

xp

maybe less conscious rap in heavy rotation R&B and rap radio than in the past (a circumscribed past), but elsewhere?

"conscious" rap was NEVER in heavy rotation on r&B and rap radio!

"conscious" rap's chart peak is probably Public Enemy's "Fight the Power", which went to no. 20 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop chart and no. 1 on the US Hot Rap Singles chart. And that was it.

yeah that's pretty much it.

xp I didn't want to mention ILX punchbag Macklemore but yeah it's worth noting that the biggest new MC of the past couple of years self-consciously styles himself as a conscious rapper. And hip hop didn't just ignore gay rights in its conscious golden age - it was often aggressively homophobic, cf Brand Nubian, Ice Cube.

that's what i mean by squinting xp

xp although I was trolling, there's also the guy he famously beat out for the grammy

Kendrick's been mentioned a few times. And he's moving in a much more conscious (hate that word but it's useful shorthand) direction. i should be catnip for RT.

leave it to ILX posters to start talking about "Macklemore" and feminism and gay rights and transgenders. This is hilarious. Why do I even post here with you saps. I'm losing swag by the second with you lames.

I dumbed down for my audience to double my dollars /
They criticize me for it yet they all yell holla /
If skills sold truth be told I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli /
Truthfully I wanna rhyme like Common Sense /
But I sold five mill, and I haven't rhymed like Common since.”

why do you even post here

So "conscious" & "political" = "kill whitey" & "shun girls"?

Rap music is dumbd down
Black people are opressed
Rap is dead

Keep living in your magical world of transgender popist equality where everything is brilliant and Taylor Swift, Minaj, Charli XXC is something you spend time listening to

leave it to ILX posters to start talking about ... feminism and gay rights and transgenders.

yeah nothing political about women or gay people amirite

http://rodon95.files.wordpress.com/2007/12/changesmall2.jpg

"shun girls"

this is a pretty um generous characterization of the rampant misogyny in Slick Rick, NWA etc.

Lord Jamar, is that you?

Not trying to be generous. Comic understatement in a post-#CharlieHebdo world.

fair dos

The likes of Common, Mos Def, Talib, Roots and Dad Prez

lmao this is actually a very apt typo considering the v significant intersection b/w ppl who like this stuff above all other rap music + dad-rock fans

Raccoon Tanuki is the drummer for Dad Prez

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/articles/pop_playground/really-real-authenticity-and-hip-hop.htm

These rappers today, I tell ya. They bang out beats on their keyboards in 15 minutes, or they just get a hot producer to do it for them (please ignore my Neptunes-produced single that bombed). Then they just rap about girls and robbing folks – no positivity! They don’t care about hip hop’s history or culture (of which I am a vital part). They don’t even care about their whole album (which should be their art) – they just hope they have two or three jams that will get some play in the club.

that was from 2003 don't you have anything that was written in the last decade by someone under 40 to support your argument

#StopTanuki2015

i believe in us

outic don't you have anything better to be doing than this?

lol

tanuki study your lessons god u lack overstanding

#buildanddestroy
#clarence13x

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/80/44/72/8044726486437db85e963daa0520b2ed.jpg

I like these threads because people get to post raccoon pictures and gifs

https://animalnewsthepodcast.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/rascal_1899_10604157.png

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=go3C4BL-lfs

though contra that drawing I think Raccoon Tanuki fulfils an important role in the ilx ecosystem

leave it to ILX posters to start talking about "Macklemore" and feminism and gay rights and transgenders. This is hilarious. Why do I even post here with you saps. I'm losing swag by the second with you lames.

great post

'raccoon rapping' is a v worthwhile youtube search

Great new dn

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e4tLrnlMxpM

We should use this thread to post DOPE current explicitly political rappers imo

I like mick Jenkins

Also raccoon t should check out the jacka whose new tape is packed with pro black agit prop

Underachievers don't rlly have a coherent message but they def incorporate lots of the imagery and iconography as a kind of hook

That Dizzy Wright track is really good.
Also, good to hear Nikkiya again, really like her voice, that SpeakHerLove album was fun...........