Notes on Hip-Hop Conservatism

We are not going to purge hip-hop conservatives, but we can struggle against conservatism in hip-hop.

The concrete basis for the ideas guiding this conservatism is historically valid, but it is a restrictive ethos which prevents a new generation of hip-hoppers from truly appreciating our current circumstances.

The entirety of hip-hop is an array of contradictory ideas and materializations. This I have strived to drive home consistently in my works. It lacks, however, a responsible and educated Left which can give an accurate context to hip-hop and fill the void left by the marginal Right.

It is important that the reader clearly understands that the classification of a Left and a Right within hip-hop is not to make synonymous with the Left and Right of the macro-political spectrum. The usage of the terms ‘Left’ and ‘Right’ merely situates a body of ideas within hip-hop that represent either a progressive force or a reactionary/conservative force; reactionary force palpably composing the Right.

If you will, and with hopes to avoid being pigeonholed as a Communist, because I think George Will, a true Old Guard conservative would know this, I would like to say something about Marx. Marx was a student of Hegel and was familiar with every subtlety of his work, but he was hesitant to allow just anyone to critique Hegel because of his skepticism about their own familiarity with and appreciation of this monumental German philosopher. I oftentimes feel the same regarding the conservatism within hip-hop; that not just anyone can lay down the sword unless they know or struggle to know all the characteristics of hip-hop. This has compelled me to write critically about this knee-jerk leftover predisposition which hovers over hip-hop like a black cloud. It simply is not marginal enough to be not annoying.

The right-wing of hip-hop—that is the intellectuals who preserve hip-hop in a magical past; the writers who, like Pan-Africanists fancying the constructing of boats to sail “back” to a mythical Africa, want to, in People Under The Stairs fashion, float us back to the “good ole’ days” when it was “all about fun”— is no longer able to express hip-hop in its newest and fullest of forms.

It is time we break with the Old Guard of Hip-Hop (the approximately late 80s to mid-90s hip-hop generation), and with its ideology. It is time we split with those who have the ideological lock on hip-hop theory. From Kevin Powell to KRS-One, the Right holds the monopoly on most hip-hop philosophy and praxis. While we can say that everyone is a philosopher and that the multitudes of albums of hip-hop artists are the incarnate form of their philosophies, the only established philosophy (okay, the the philosophy of motherfuckers who got books out), is a conservative one.

Where does this knee-jerk philosophy I speak of come from? Who constitutes the Old Guard? The answer is not as neat and tidy as I would prefer it to be. When considering the ideas which compose the Old Guard we must always consider them in motion. What I mean is that hip-hop conservatism has an objective/economic and subjective/ideological basis. It came from somewhere and there are a host of historical influences which push it forward.

The old guard had a real opportunity to begin critically attacking capital, which it did at times, at least ideologically so, because that is where it has its origins. In the mid-90s, record companies were further consolidating and label executives began to drop artists like flies. They did this in response to Parent’s Music Resource Center, Tipper Gore’s brainchild lobbyist group which “monitored Un-American and anti-patriotic attitudes in music”, to C. Delores Tucker, a former Civil Rights activist of all people, to Bob Dole, etc. Not only did they drop gangsta rappers, they dropped all artists whose fan base remained regional and/or small. To some that is good business, but in reality it is just business.

Out of this consolidation and out of the reaction to this consolidation arose a whole new legitimate strand within hip-hop music. A democratic and independent music movement began to sprout to fill a gap that large music enterprises could not and were incapable of filling. Stones Throw, Rawkus, Fondle ‘Em, and other independent music outfits began to grow and fulfill a need for individual creative control over artists’ music.

But as this independent strand expanded and developed ideas of its own, it produced an ideological extreme; one that negates all unlike it including other independent movements. It was an ideology that struggled against other variations of hip-hop. It sometimes took on an anti-technological sentiment; that is, when it was convenient. A turntable is technology in that it contains material substratum which has been altered by the labor of man, but the line of demarcation became the phonograph since digital technology was repudiated.

Initially, the need was progressive. Vinyl production ground to a halt in the early 90s as more and more DJs mixed music with CD players. But CD players during this time were incredibly limited. It was impossible to scratch, to beat juggle (the manipulation of two copies of the same record), and it lacked the feel of vinyl. Hip-Hop DJing had grown into a true and perfected art form. Nowadays, however, this need has been satisfied by the CD turntable manufacturers. Every single aspect of spinning vinyl records has been completely replicated so that the only basis to continue the use of vinyl is personal preference which usually takes the form of conservatism since it sometimes demonizes those who employ digital technology (CD DJs).

So at this stage we have completely reified hip-hop, fetishized the turntable and wax recordings and hence all music recorded on wax. Hip-Hop is not relegated to simply sampling records since many modern producers use the sounds of synthesizers to create original music. But bound up with this conservatism of the phonograph is the conservatism of sampling vinyl for music production. There is potential for a progressive tendency to emerge out of the sampling of vinyl music in that it reproduces old sounds to make something modern and unique, but when it merely reproduces the same sounds over and over again the corresponding ideology says, like the old generation says of all new music, that the classic way is the pure way.

DJ Shadow states that, "My aim in life is not to try to successfully duplicate a '88 hip hop record, or a '68 psych tune," he explains. "It's to incorporate elements of all sorts in into something hopefully new and innovative." This statement profoundly reflects in a progressive fashion the motion of contradiction, the dialectical nature in music. There is a logical outcome, a negation, of this new music movement which has manifested a hip-hop elitism and a refutation of not only popular hip-hop, but its other regional and independent expressions. This negation has represented a limitation instead of the democratic spirit which is inherent in the mid-90s independence movement.

We are not in the mid-90s anymore. We are in the middle of the first decade of the 2000s; ten years later. Popular music again reflects the ideas and conditions which make up the American people. The existence of the Dirty South, Crunk, Snap, etc. are new varieties of hip-hop which are representations of a collective will and a collective experience. It is not as simple as saying consent is manufactured, that folks are brainwashed, and that materialism and misogyny killed hip-hop.

I do not want to imply that I think independent hip-hop is invalid, but that the conservative values which coexists with the so-called “true” school, yet white underground is a hindrance to the progression of hip-hop.

If one critically attempts to examine the differences between a rapper like Los Angeles-based Murs and one like Keak Da Sneak, a Bay Area underground rapper, the only disparities are purely external; meaning Murs has a different social base of listeners as opposed to Keak, i.e. he is plugged into a medium of circulation; a constituency; a market which exists largely outside of Keak’s.

Murs’ medium of circulation is mostly white students of liberal arts and children of professionals, while Keak’s is almost unanimously poor, black, unemployed or working-class. This is the irony of many hip-hop conservatives considering their Lefty politics. Another ironic factor is that both artists are underground; neither is contracted to large music monopolies. It is their social base which is different.

There are subtle nuances between Murs and Keak and between the black underground and the white underground of hip-hop music, but when one endeavors to elaborate fundamental differences, one is limited to making partial and superficial distinctions, e.g. Murs’ beats are better, Murs does not wear gaudy jewelry or platinum grills, etc. So much of the hip-hop conservatism is based in the dubious content of lyrics, yet, as seen above, when urged to show that the white underground is not misogynistic, violent, drug-addicted, alcoholic, materialistic, they many times cannot.

Murs is just as misogynistic, just as gangsta as Keak. Madlib, an Oxnard, CA area producer/rapper has a song called “Money Hungry Bitches”. Kool G Rap, a rapper from Queens, NY has an album body count which might constitute an entire city, which makes one hard-pressed to ascribe a real difference.

The difference many times is entrenched in a cloaked racism. The constituency of white hip-hoppers is unfamiliar, uncomfortable, guilt-ridden, and defensive when it comes to independent or popular black music. They do not understand it; they are not shaped by its social conditions, so they condemn it. They are haters. They have never spoken for the majority of white participants within hip-hop.

It is important here that we understand generalizing as a point of building a basis for dialogue. We cannot speak of absolutes because if we do, we have an inaccurate measure and arrive at a disingenuous conclusion. Murs has black listeners (I know several) just as Keak has white listeners (including the author of this piece), but it is important for us to investigate the general tendency among the folks who listen to the music so we can get a better grip on what is taking place in the minds of people and in the economic, political, and ideological forces which are determining their reality.

I am not dismissive of underground music, white or black, Atmosphere, a white rapper from the Midwest, or Brotha Lynch, Sacramento’s death rap pioneer. I am critical of any idea which, while it may have a historical relevancy, efforts to dismiss any autonomous movement of creative expression, however ugly or violent it is.

We have the unique opportunity to explore hip-hop from a revolutionary framework. We have had enough maturity, enough regional manifestations, etc. to write the history of hip-hop as an indicator of where people are, how they think about themselves, and their vision for the world. We cannot do this with a set of ideas which consigns movements of hip-hop which are followed en masse to ignorance and stupidity. As a visionary hip-hop writer once said, we lack the ability to accept hip-hop on its own terms.