How Hip-Hop Was Viewed in 1981

Shout out to Oliver Wang at Poplicks.com who linked to this 20/20 special from 1981 covering hip-hop music. If y'all are like me you will get a lot out of it.

I think what struck me most is the way they portrayed hip-hop; as a valid and democratic street music that spoke to the social conflicts of its time. In fact, the show is quite visionary in its predictions and historical lens. "Hip-hop will be around for years to come." That's pretty gutsy for a mainstream news show that many white Americans watched who would have said that rap was a fad. Of course, there is also the claim that rap was "an overnight phenomenon." You might could say this at a certain point, but not by '81.

Today, you can't see anything in the press or blogs that isn't either making hip-hop responsible for social conflict or perpetuating it. Hip-hop, apparently a thing above people, divorced from them, and that they have no say in, makes them violent (violent in the abstract, of course; as if direct conflict with the police is a bad thing), makes them patriarchal (because the State is anti-patriarchal; after all it is liberating Middle Eastern women, right?), and makes them materialistic (ah, because otherwise we live in a socialist society!).

What's clear here is that even in 1981 hip-hop had a very broad reach and was already being capitalized on by business outside of the recording industry. Not only that, but hip-hop was "rocking the vote" as we see from the Boston rap commercial. "They say your vote doesn't count, but that's a bunch of jive!" Damn that sounds familiar. Hip-hop was being used to teach history; which it does organically, but already then the State was using it to teach the "right" history.

For historicity, the linkages to black oral tradition is on point. One claim I tire from hearing is hip-hop's supposed African origins when there's about a 500 year disconnect; a claim not present here. But mostly, in saying that, it's the assumption that folks can't create anything new. I will say, however, there's definitely a prior experience that hip-hop developed in that this special broadly captures.

I think we should be happy to say that hip-hop, through all its changes, has grown to be ever more democratic and universal and that whatever we don't like about hip-hop, it's the reality we shouldn't like, not its aesthetic expressions.