How I Understood Hip-Hop at 17

The following essay was written when I was just 17. By this time, I had already been thinking and writing about hip-hop for the better part of a year and had identified as a "hip-hopper" for nearly two, although as indicated elsewhere on the blog I had been influenced by hip-hop culture from a very young age.

This was an overly ambitious project that was to be the first chapter in a book called "The Hip Hop Manifesto" which was used for the purposes of building a national hip-hop organization through a website I maintained in the late 90s called "The B-Boy Call E-zine." While I had recruited twenty or so people locally, a few people nationally, and one person from Canada, I didn't have the experience, perspective, or commitment in terms of where to take the organization and how to build and consolidate locals.

I'll expound later in the comments section.

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Saturday, May 23, 1998

This oppressed culture, established circa 1973, will be a key player in the coming revolution. Before this time we must bring order to Hip Hop by discussing our goals and how we plan to work independently as a nation.

I believe first that we must identify ourselves. Who is a Hip Hopper? How does one become a Hip Hopper? There is no traditional way of officially becoming a follower of Hip Hop. There is no ceremony or prayer that is completed. But if we want order and if we want to progress and exceed beyond the four elements that currently make up this culture, we must adopt some form of ceremony that we must all go through to give each of us a better understanding of the intentions of this culture. If not a ceremony then an acceptance of a basic belief system.

How should this belief system be based then? Well, we must first look at how and why Hip Hop started. It started out of ruins of slave ships, Christ worshiping Aztecs, and English-speaking Native Americans. We were brought together by hate and bloodshed. If there had been no oppression, Hip Hop would have never existed.

What system was this culture founded in and who brought us all together? The capitalist United States of America.

So, we must recognize first that this system that we live under is evil and corrupt. We must also recognize that most and maybe all governments and systems inside this planet Earth exploit the masses of people. As Hip Hoppers we must deny any tie we have to these systems and accept ourselves only as inhabitants of the Earth. Any feelings of nationalism should be left behind as barriers from unification with others and a oneness with the Earth and Universe. And since Hip Hop is a multinational and multiracial culture then we must believe that we are all one nation under a move.

We need to be Humanitarians and take care of each other and the Earth. It is not the Earth itself that is bad, it's the systems within it. We must start thinking and acting as Humanitarians. We are all struggling to better Humanity and the masses. We all have our own philosophies and religions and opinions on God, but we all need to live by these basic principles. Peace, Love, Unity, and Revolution.

Peace because Hip Hop became and outlet from negativity. Instead of gunshots being exchanged between individuals who disliked each other, a battle of skills would take place to be determined by the audience.

We must remain humble and peaceful. We must set an example for the rest of the world to see. We must also have love for each other and the Earth. And in the spiritual revolution, love will be the ammunition used against a hateful system.

Unity is mandatory. Hip Hop became a culture because of the unity among the followers. Us sticking together and cooperation amongst each other is what's going to help us advance as a nation. People ask me all the time how I can promote love and revolution at the same time. But what they don't realize is that this system was founded on hate, so love is a revolutionary act.

With these basic principles, some sort of ceremony should take place. If a person is not inspired to practice an element, he or she should find some other form of expression and add his or her own flavor to the culture. As long as you dedicate yourself and strive to better the culture and use it for good it is not necessary to practice one of the four standard elements. Once a person understands the principles and knows their history of this culture, only then should the ceremony take place. There should also be witnesses participating.

This is not an organization, but we must have some organization within this culture. We need more rallies and events to discuss the current issues within Hip Hop and how we plan to address these issues such as the media's interpretation of Hip Hop and how they compare us to gangsters, hoodlums, radical, vandals, etc. We need to discuss how we will react to these false pretenses.

We must start becoming an active movement because we are a movement. We are revolutionaries and we do have a cause. Our cause is to end oppression and exploitation at all costs. We must break this continual cycle of hate handed down from generation to generation. We must keep from happening the same thing that happened to us. We must give these lost clones feeding off negativity an outlet. We must shed our light. Hip Hop was and is a light within the dark.

Hip Hop is very unorganized currently. With what we have and what we know we must organize and prepare for the future and the shift of the people's consciousness. We must move forward and become active with our knowledge and strength in numbers. We must constantly attract future followers. By all means necessary...prepare.