Hip-Hop Is NOT A Culture (Reader’s Choice ReMix)

shouts to BC dot C

I have been trying to wrap my head around this topic for several weeks now. Ever since I saw a subway advertisement for the VH-1 produced show ‘Hip-Hop Honors,’ I have been in a lousy mood. When I think about the history of VH-1 and MTV in relation to Hip-Hop, I get pissed the fuck off. I am old enough to remember the time when these cultural hustlers would not recognize Hip-Hop because the T.I.’s didn’t believe they could make money from it. They thought that because this art was originally produced and created by disenfranchised people, it would not translate to the suburbs and the exurbs of America.

Give RUSSELL SIMMONS and RICK RUBIN hell’a credit too. When the T.I.’s saw how many white were coming to see acts like KURTIS BLOW, T-LA ROCK, RUN-DMC and of course, the BEASTIE BOYS, they realized there was money to be made. Keep in mind that Hip-Hop’s prime demographic group is white males between the ages of 14 yrs old and 28yrs old (a/k/a the new teenage years).

I went to see 50CENT at the 70,000 seat Ford Field in Detroit and the only black folks that I saw were the ones tap-dancing on stage and the fools selling bootleg tee shirts outside the arena. Hip-Hop music is how white in America gets a chance to go on an ‘urban safari’. From the veritable safety of their iPOD.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE stop calling Hip-Hop a culture. This demeans the achievements of actual cultures that have shaped everything from language to economics to politics. Hip-Hop has not transformed any of the aforementioned standards. Hip-Hop in America is marketed as an alternative to securing an education, so much so that the word ‘bling’ now appears in the Merriam-Webster dictionary. Hip-Hop in America is marketed to promote consumerism without regard for fiscal austerity, so much so that people without a pot to piss in have a bottle of champagne in their refrigerator. Hip-Hop in America is marketed as an over-sized white tee shirt instead of the realization of socio-political responsibility, so much so that ‘VOTE or DIE!’ rolls off of my lips as easy as ‘JUST SAY NO!’

The actual culture is called capitalism. Hip-Hop is an artistic movement that is an outgrowth of the culture of capitalism, much the same way that 5000 years ago North African culture produced the pyramids. Though to tell you the truth, Hip-Hop isn’t nearly as great or everlasting as the pyramids of Giza. I don’t think any beings will look at the ‘Black’ album 1000 years from now and think that they missed some kind of cultural zenith.

I am not telling you not to enjoy watching a program that features performances from some of the artists that have crafted the soundtrack to our lives, just don’t get all longwinded and quasi-intellectual. No one will care what you have to say anyway.

30 Responses to “Hip-Hop Is NOT A Culture (Reader’s Choice ReMix)”

  1. P-Matik says:

    Yeah, me and my Zulu Nation chapter brought Professor Griff out once to give a lecture. He was going off about how hip-hop wasn’t a culture but a SUBculture. Which it is, he ain’t lie. Luckily I am at an age where I can remember when hip-hop wasn’t completely swallowed up by capitalism. Luckily, you still have heads writing graffiti and b-boying just for the sake of it. Rappers…not so much. I don’t know how many times I deejayed in public for no loot, just cuz I wanted to play joints I liked for other people that liked the same shit.

  2. Jen says:

    I’m sorry, but Hip Hop is clearly culture.

    Most definitions of culture center themes of communication and a collection of knowledge or beliefs or tradition. How does Hip Hop not qualify??

    Honestly, I could buy early Hip Hop being a subculture, but contemporary Hip Hop has stretched well beyond any group of people that can be commonly identified by anything but Hip Hop itself. So, not only is Hip Hop a culture, but it is a multi-faceted culture with sub-cultures of its own.

    And, by the way…Hip Hop HAS shaped language, economics and politics. I’m not sure how you can reference the word “bling” and its presence in the dictionary and still not recognize Hip Hop’s impact on one at least of these.

    That said, none of those things are necessarily what makes hip hop culture.

    As for the whites you mentioned (who can afford these incredibly-priced concert tickets), very few of them stand any closer than the periphery of this culture. For them, hip hop is an anthropological venture or study. But, good God…for millions of people around the world, Hip Hop is a way of life.

    I’m 23 years old; I grew up in the Hip Hop culture. I can’t begin to tell you how much Hip Hop has shaped me.

  3. Combat Jack says:

    D, u headed to the Freedom Party 2morrow or r u still outta town?

  4. Liam says:

    great post, unfortunately i think you are pretty much right on with the last statement.

  5. Incilin says:

    I’m with Jen 100% on this one. Hip hop has plenty of language and economics to it. I mean slang is an integral part of hip hop. And it’s still a billion dollar industry. But I do agree with the idea that hip hop is an extension of capitalism.

    And I don’t blame hip hop for dude’s having bottles without no pots to piss in. It’s just that when you take some broke ass dude from the ghetto and get him rich, of course he gone act a fool and be popping bottles and all that. And when other broke mofos see those guys, they just want to feel rich themselves. Things like that come from poverty, consumerism, and capitalism and they would still exist if hip hop didn’t.

  6. Dallas, are you going to be back in time for Prospect Park tomorrow? For those of ya’ll who don’t know, the lineup is–

    Crooklyn Dodgers (O.C., Jeru & Chubb Rock)
    EMC (Masta Ace ++)
    some dude DJ Premier

    hosted by Buckshot & … Special Ed?!

    they should have got Joell to open but I guess they wanted the old dudes more. Still, this should be beyond sick– hope the DP fam can make it.

    The Music Director
    Who Walk In Brooklyn

  7. hottnikz says:

    ^^^^^Damn, makes me wish I lived in NY.

  8. Gee says:

    You ain’t evah lied.

    This is one of the articles that I have printed out for the kids’ future reading information.

    You need to be sombodies’ daddy.

  9. coqui says:

    good look dallas, thanks.

  10. the_dallas says:

    Sorry Jen,
    Even though you have grown up enjoying a genre of music called Hip-Hop(more than likely you have been listening to rap music though) it is still not A culture, Capitalism is the reason for the artform in the first place. The disenfranchised youth that had no outlets for expression fashioned this artform from the ghettos of San Juan and Trenchtown. It then migrated to New York City and found itself in the most impoverished areas.

    Where there were no pools and people used fire hydrants, Where there was no electricity in homes and people used power from the streetlamps. Where there were no canvasses or paintbrushes and people used aerosol cans on subway panels. Hip-Hop was the voice of the people who had nothing and were being swept under the rug by the post-Nixon Federal government. In our lifetime this artform has given words to the dictionary and simultaneously helped to incarcerate disenfranchised people physically and mentally.

    GET RICH OR DIE TRYING?!?

    How about getting free to start living?

    Hip-Hop is NOT a culture. It is an artform that has been bastardized through commercialization.

    Do your research Jen.

    Look up Ernie Paniccioli.

    Guess who’s back from holiday?

    ‘Nuff said.

  11. Jason says:

    DP and Jen can both be “right” here.
    There are many definitions of culture today, which one is the correct one?
    Both Jen and DP’s definitions are valid to me. DP you seem to not have wide view on the many definitions of culture, or you may deem them invalid. Jen said, “themes of communication and a collection of knowledge or beliefs or tradition.” With that definition which is most definitely kind of loose, hip hop IS a culture. Now the capitalism culture you speak of that has swallowed the artistic movement known as hip-hop is equally valid, and is correct to include certain economics as a dominant culture in and of it’s self. For the most part I am with on this DP but you can’t narrow the definition of culture like that, you can only qualify it, which you did sort of.

  12. Ernest Paniccioli says:

    To Jen and anyone who is misguided enough to equate Hip Hop with Culture (and I’ve been there as part of Hip Hop since it’s birth)
    As an elder, and as a man who has devoted his entire adult life to documenting Hip Hop I have to drop some science and set the record straight and if it hurts anyone’s feeling fuck them.

    Let’s start with the death of Frosty Freeze. I was asked to go to his memorial by several people, my response was simple and to the point: When the brother was alive most of you motherfuckers would not give him a dollar to go see a doctor. His name and image was not even on the Rock Steady Crew website when he was alive. So going to his wake/memorial was just a chance to see old friends, wear your tired Kangol hats, Wild Style t-shirts and pose with a whole lot of broke ass, braggin’ ass motherfucking (I was the first to do this, to do that etc, etc, etc, I was the first Korean to dance in Texas or the first left handed Graf artist or the first DJ to perform in the subway station or the first emcee to get shot or the first B Boy to smoke crack or the first Albino to tag on the 7 line) lames who fail to realize that this is 2008 not 78 or 88 and if you’ve done nothing creative in the past two or three decades it means whatever you did and whatever your contribution was then, it was just a fluke or something caught by Charlie Ahearn’s or Henry’s camera which is still being shown today due to them and their hustle and not due to your particular “genius” or talent.

    One of my happiest days was being asked to be part of the historic Federation For The Preservation of Hip Hop. I was hoping the true pioneers would reignite true school Hip Hop. Wow, did I get a wake up call. Every time I was on TV or Radio I shouted out the Federation, when the pioneers were on Tv especially BET they talked about their sneaker collections or took off their shits and showed their muscles or talked about some lyrical beef from 35 years ago, or big upped some wack assed clothing line, not a word about the federation.

    Even Kool Herc has no CD’s and all of the music (to my knowledge) available from the rest of the pioneers profits only the bastards that put out the compilations and nothing goes to the artists. Is it any wonder the current generation of rappers and Hip Hop heads laughs at them?

    There are damn few real emcees in the current crop or rappers (with the notable exception of Immortal Technique) and even fewer who know or care who came before them. Most of them think Jay Z, L’il Wayne and Puffy (Diddy) are good rappers. Most would not be able to pick out Grand Wizzard Theodore, Rakim, Vulcan or KRS1 out of a police lineup. And 99% of them have never read a book, listened to Jazz know who John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Nina Simone, Gil Scott Heron, Richie Havens, Marcus Garvey or Crazy Horse are.

    Mos Def said it best, “Hip Hop is us, if we’re violent Hip Hop is going to be violent, if we’re smoked out, Hip Hop is going to be smoked out and if we’re wack, Hip Hop is going to be wack.” As far as getting angry, nah, check back in 5 years from now and see if anyone remembers Dipset or how many members of the crew are still alive or even have ten dollars in their pockets.

    In my photographic archive I can show you hundreds if not thousands of washed up, forgotten, exploited, broke, dead, rappers, DJ’s Graf Artists, B Boys and self proclaimed “artists’.

    Now let’s ask the hard question then you can go back to your IPOD, Cell Phone, Video Game, Cable Show, DVD or MYSPACE:

    Where is our Hip Hop Museum?
    Where is our Hip Hop School?
    Where is our Hip Hop Political Movement?
    Where is our Hip Hop Health Insurance?
    Where is our Hip Hop Emergency Fund?
    Where is our Hip Hop Detox Center?
    Where is our Hip Hop Building?
    Where is our Hip Hop Radio Station?
    Where is our Hip Hop TV Station?
    Where is our Hip Hop Hospital?
    Where is our Hip Hop Foster Care?
    Where is our Hip Hop Anti-Gang Initiative?

    If you answered any corporate-owned (Russell Simmons/ Puffy/ Industry/ Smithsonian) entity to any of these questions then your answer is null and void.

    As long as we have to have “Hip Hop events” at devil owned places like Powerhouse Arena, or see 45 year old men still dressing like they are 17 yrs old, or celebrate the 35th anniversary of Wild Style or Krush Groove like they are somehow true Hip-Hop and religious events, and as long as Zulu has to fight, beg, borrow and steal to pay for their anniversary then Hip-Hop to me is just a sad joke.

  13. Ernest Paniccioli says:

    There is no Hip Hop Culture. That is the truth, period. Every Culture has all of the things I referred to in my letter. Every Culture has a spiritual or religious central core and a social, political and economic base. The Mayan, Aztec, Native American, Buddhist, Muslim, Tibetan all had core principles. Hip Hop is at best an art form, a multi faceted art form. Art is art and Culture is Culture. This is not my opinion it is fact. This is not semantics it is science.
    As long as we look to art, rappers, dancers, painters or musicians for answers to Cultural problems we will always get the wrong answers.
    Rap at best addresses issues and puts them in the forefront of our awareness and consciousness. It does not, has not, will not, cannot provide solutions. Solutions take action, unity, economics and political power.
    As long as you look to the wrong thing for right answers you will always get the wrong answers. To compound matters Rap has been colonized, bought, sold and paid for and is basically the new slave auction block. Without exception every rapper who is getting any shine at all is being used for the genocide of their people
    Jay Z-American Gangster-Big Pimping
    Snoop- promoting weed and pimping.
    50 Cent-the most negative, anti life rapper that ever lived
    L’il Wayne
    Dip Set
    G Unit
    Tupac-Thug Life
    and on and on and on.
    Dallas Penn (www.dallaspenn.com) writes:
    “Rap music is so often contextualized next to professional wrestling. Mostly because the blood and beefs are faked and the rampant steroid use. I never found myself interested in women’s wrestling and I think that sentiment rings true for people listening to rap music in 2008. Rap music has shifted culturally from embodying art to representing sport, and not even graceful sports either. Most rap music nowadays grunts and bumps its head into the wall. Rightfully so too since most fans say they listen to rap in order NOT to have to think.”
    Sit with the Mothers who have lost sons at the hands of wanna be thug life, gangsta, shitheads.
    Nuff said. Peace, Ernie

  14. Jason says:

    Ernest-
    What makes your list of things that make a culture THE definition of culture? “That is the truth, period.” Just because you are an authority on hip hip since inception doesn’t mean you are the gatekeeper of culture in general and it’s ever changing meaning and signifiers. Falsify my definition or the other many definitions of “culture”. A valid definition of culture could be as simple as Wikipedia’s, “patterns of human activity and the symbolic structures that give such activities significance and importance. Cultures can be “understood as systems of symbols and meanings that even their creators contest”. It’s partial, but true. Hip-hop fits this partially true definition valid form of criteria for culture. Many of things you mentioned are more civilization than culture. Hip-Hop IS a culture, you just reject all other equally valid definitions of it. Tell Saul Williams hip-hop is not a culture, read the Dead Emcee scrolls and say that. You say it’s not semantics it’s science, howso? What is the scientific injunction proving your fact that hip-hop is not a culture? I am not getting into what I know about hip hop versus what you know, clearly you have me there, but as an anthropologist and a white anti-racist activist I try to avoid ALL NARROW definitions especially white ones, but I will call out anyone regardless when they show no little understanding of the what culture IS and IS NOT. Coming out so forcefully saying something as fluid as hip hop is NOT fitting the generally large post modern idea of what cultures are is definitely not advisable here, historically speaking.

  15. the_dallas says:

    Jason,
    It’s much more simple than you seem to grasp because culture, real culture, is the zenith of civilization.

    Let’s start with agri-culture and how it teaches you to respect the Earth and the cycles it progresses through. Study the roots of words like communication and recognize that community of man and commune with the Earth are essential for communication to be valid.

    I know what you mean in your defence of Hip-Hop as an actual culture and you should definitely continue to raise the flag for the art and the artists and the art lovers, but don’t waste your time anthopologizing the Earth. That IS some white shit. Start apologizing for supremacy and figure out ways to dismantle it.

    That would be Hip-Hop of you.

    Or don’t take my opinion at all. I have a G.E.D. and no college degree.

  16. thoreauly77 says:

    “Start apologizing for supremacy and figure out ways to dismantle it.”

    i was with you until that.

    i think we get lost in our definitions of what constitutes culture. hiphop has this ownership/non-ownership dichotomy which exists because white people want to be a part of a culture that we did not create, but have contributed to. to many, i will never be a stakeholder due to the the tone of my skin. my personal opinion is “fuck that”, but that doesn’t mean that the opinions of the naysayers (or self-identified stakeholders) are invalid. i think that hip hop is a culture; it is a culture that has been raped by capitalism certainly, but as it turns out most cultures are, if not all. this whole “you think this, and you are wrong, or you think this and you are right” business is what fucks it all up. this is not a socio-anthropological critique or any of that shit, this is just me. hip hop made me pay attention to music — the music helped me to acknowledge something outside of my own awareness — this awareness has become a catalyst for change. this is what a cultural movement does. it sparks change. disregard the bastardization of the artform, and the culture still exists.

    ernie, you have capitalized off of an artform spawned by the culture of hip hop. your diatribes are well-founded, but (i think) mis-guided. i refuse to believe that you can simultaneously document and comment upon a culture and only call it an artform when what you do is actually an artistic component of said culture. succinctly put, if hip hop is not a culture, why are so many people documenting it? artistic movements come and go, but do not necessarily have the roots for sustenance.

  17. thoreauly77 says:

    also, whats up with this?

    “Where is our Hip Hop Museum?
    Where is our Hip Hop School?
    Where is our Hip Hop Political Movement?
    Where is our Hip Hop Health Insurance?
    Where is our Hip Hop Emergency Fund?
    Where is our Hip Hop Detox Center?
    Where is our Hip Hop Building?
    Where is our Hip Hop Radio Station?
    Where is our Hip Hop TV Station?
    Where is our Hip Hop Hospital?
    Where is our Hip Hop Foster Care?
    Where is our Hip Hop Anti-Gang Initiative?”

    is this a joke? if all of these things were granted, would hip hip be deemed culture? this just does not qualify. if it does, than we can disqualify any culture ever from existing on these grounds. i understand the sentiment and the desire to provide shock, but you tell me ONE culture that has all of these components and i will poke holes in a flawed argument.

  18. the_dallas says:

    Thoreauly77,
    It is because that you think ownership belongs to a “skin color” that you will forever lack ownership. You said I lost you at this sentence…

    “Start apologizing for supremacy and figure out ways to dismantle it.”

    Since you cultural apologists folks are wild academics use the literary use of apology on some Apologia des Socrates type shit. The culture is called capitalism. It wouldn’t turn on the lights in some really poor neighborhoods during the summer of 1977. People had to tie into emergency streetlights for power. Do you know how dangerous that is? Look up the pics on Rotten dot com where some dude in Russia effs up while stealing live electricity.

    This wasn’t just Uganda, or Palestine, or Tibet, or Chechnya or Manila. This was the Bronx, NY.

    It’s cool that Hip-Hop gives some folks shit to focus on, or the inverse which is to have absolutely no focus whatsoever, but you are avoiding the raison d’etre for the movement in the first place. Ownership was NEVER subject to a phony ass precept such as color. Being down is much more realer than that.

  19. Ernest Paniccioli says:

    If I am too ignorant or ill spoken to convey what I know, what I feel and what is to me the truth, then I apologize. Read what I wrote line for line. See what I have contributed to Hip Hop for over thirty years. Read what Afrika Bambaataa, Chuck D, KRS1 and even Mos Def, Q Tip and Bill Cosby have said about my art, photography and activism.
    If Hip Hop is under your definitions a Culture are Punk and Soul and even Country Music and R & B culture?
    People too quickly repeat what they hear and in so doing the mass repetition is passed off as truth rather than oral tradition.
    Hip Hop (the Five Elements as defined by the Universal Zulu Nation on their website) is an artform.
    If it does not possess or aspire to create any or all of the things listed in my letter or address, focus on, attempt to correct or heal the needs of the people who practice the artform or revere the artform it is not nor will ever become an culture. Ernie

  20. Ernest Paniccioli says:

    A tiny bit of my bio and a slice of my props:

    Before Rap and Hip Hop videos adorned screens and airwaves all over the world, Ernie with his endless drive and intuitive style of photography, was beginning to help artists like Slick Rick, Grandmaster Flash, The Rock Steady Crew, Doug E. Fresh, Ice Cube, Queen Latifah, Public Enemy, Salt-N-Pepa and many many more. His work has decorated such illustrious publications as Rolling Stone, Vibe, The New York Times, Newsweek, Life, SPIN and Ebony. He has also shot for MTV and VH1 and has photos published in books, on album covers and posters throughout the globe. Paniccioli’s work has also been displayed in various exhibits including The New York City Urban Experience Museum where 110 pieces from his Hip Hop Gallery were displayed making it the largest one man photography show in New York City history. When asked which of his photographs is his favorite, Ernie responds “My favorite photograph is my next one.”

    Ernie has lectured on the art and nature of Hip Hop at numerous universities and other forums throughout the nation and has appeared as a a dynamic guest speaker on hundreds of radio stations. Paniccioli’s overwhelming drive and determination has lead to his most recent accomplishments: In November 2007, his film, “The Other Side of Hip Hop” on his life, art politics and photography was been awarded Best Documentary in the 2007 Big Apple Film Festival. . It has also screened at The San Diego Black Film Festival. In December, 2007, Ernie appeared in Oscar winning Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s play, “The Long Red Road”, at the Public Theatre. This year, he self published eight new books available only through stores.lulu.com/ErniePaniccioli.

    Although some might say that Hip Hop today has fallen off its base, according to Ernie, “We need not look further than the world that surrounds us. Hip Hop is a mirror of society. The problem is not Hip Hop moving in the wrong direction, it’s us. We are the ones moving off track.”

    Please contact: brotherernie@gmail.com
    For interviews, images, lecture bookings, wholesale orders & more info about Ernie Paniccioli.

    Pick up Who Shot Ya: 3 Decades of Hip Hop Photography
    by Ernie Paniccioli and Kevin Powell at amazon.com

    myspace.com/ernie_paniccioli
    myspace.com/erniepaniccioli
    myspace.com/brotherernie

    For more information about “The Other Side of Hip Hop”, please visit: ourgang62.com.

  21. t-bone says:

    See the problem here is you’re not really arguing whether hip hop is a culture; you’re arguing the definition of culture itself.

    You don’t seem to accept modern theories on culture. To cosign ernest’s idea that culture is wholly dependent on whether there is a social structure is idiocy. And noone ever said hip hop was some kind of civilisation…and if that’s the only way you define a culture? then shit, not too much is a culture.

    Culture exists in subdivisions. Countries have their own. Religions have their own. Schools have their own. Movements have their own. Fuck, it all overlaps. Ernest and yourself oversimplify everything. According to your arguments there is no modern day culture. Your saying our culture is CAPITALISM. It’s kool to get deep n shit, but i think what you’re trying to say is that hip hop culture has been deeply affected by the culture of capitalism, no? Once again, everything exists in an overlapping web of culture.

    It’s alright to be angry at the state of hip hop and what it embodies today, and therefore be UPSET at its existence as a culture; but this doesn’t change the fact that IT IS ONE.

    and yes, your blog commentates on, and IS A PART of the culture.

  22. Incilin says:

    I keep reading (and rereading) this post and all the comments and just get more frustrated. Everyone here seems to make some valid point and then some bad points and vice versa. Everyone makes a somewhat complex argument only to have everyone else try to oversimplify it.

    I don’t think anyone here is more or less entitled than anyone else. I certainly don’t disregard thoreauly because he’s white or dallas because he didn’t go to college. Or think whatever Ernie says is gospel just because he’s been there since the inception.

    Whatever the case, I’m still inclined to refer to hip hop as a culture or at the very least a sub culture. Although there’s no denying that capitalism has infected it with a rather deadly disease (I wonder if hip hop in communist Russia would be the “real hip hop”? Ahh, nevermind) but capitalism is the American way and it effects every facet of our lives.

    But what bothers me the most about this whole debate is that I can’t seem to figure out what’s at stake. Let’s say we all come to the conclusion that hip hop is indeed a culture, what then? I’m not sure what our goal here is. To define something knowing damn well that the definition is relative no matter what?

  23. the_dallas says:

    If y’all wanna call a dog a cat then by all means do so. Will that make a dog become a cat? Will that dog also desire cat food instead of puppy chow?

    I say hit yourself in the head with aluminum baseball bat and knock yourselves out.

    When you come back to the reality of the situation and not just the philosophical meanderings we will still be here. We’ve always been here.

    The idea of culture has been so watered down that you need need to wear scuba gear to wrap your head around it.

    I’m all for studying shit and learning new and exciting polysyllabic words.

    Today’s new word is obtusivity.

  24. thoreauly77 says:

    ^^^ it’s taking me a while to understand that new word d.

    Dallas- you write “Thoreauly77,
    It is because that you think ownership belongs to a “skin color” that you will forever lack ownership. You said I lost you at this sentence…”

    Yet, I don’t feel that way. I was referring to arguments I have gotten into with the likes of jimi izrael, amongst others. my essential point is that i am nearly always willing to consider other people’s viewpoints if they can back them up, and if i still disagree, well, it’s time to K.I.M.

    i think incilin has had the most valid question so far: “Let’s say we all come to the conclusion that hip hop is indeed a culture, what then?”

    honestly, i don’t know. i suppose ernie can make a case for what to do if it is indeed a culture, by pointing out that a culture should be striving to do the above list.

  25. the_dallas says:

    Thoreauly77,
    I’m glad you don’t take offence to the commentary here and you keep coming back to further the discussion. I hope readers are checking your blog for similar threads and ideas.

    What to do if Hip-Hop is a culture…

    Nothing to do since it isn’t, but if you are interested in pre-emptive preparations why don’t we copp this spaceship for when the asteroid comes at the Earth hardbody?

    The problems that existed in the Bronx prior to Kool Herc setting up his sound system to jam with the people are still here. The bodega is still the supermercado for far too many people. Any affordable and meaningful education or vocational training is still not available. Healthcare for children and the elderly is still subpar where it does exist.

    I was telling you that this movement was spawned from a class of people who were forgotten and left for dead. Hip-Hop will be on on culture when its focus is trained on celebrating life and creating a system for living, instead of promoting death and making a killing.

  26. Ernest Paniccioli says:

    First, to all of you: Thank you for sharing and more importantly, for thinking. I miss ciphers, Today’s ciphers either don’t exist or dredge things from the toilet.
    We are as a Nation involved in two illegal wars. We have an illegal cabinet position :Homeland Security, gas is being priced out of reach, food prices make you say ouch, Katrina, Jena 6, Sean Bell all came and went and we are still not united, fighting back and worse of all we have no REAL leaders, no plan, not even a slogan unless you call “Vote or Die” a rally cry.
    Here is a serious question: Is Porn a Culture? All of the things that the believers said made Hip Hop a culture exist in Porn. It is multi-racial, it is global, it is youth oriented, it has contributed to our vocabulary, it has brought together everyone from Midgets to Asians to giants to unique tastes. It went mainstream the same year as Hip Hop. It has legends, it has made some folks millionaires and it is also run by T.I’s and dozens of rappers have appeared in it.
    Therefore it begs the question based on that paradigm “IS PORN A CULTURE?” Ernie

  27. the_dallas says:

    Ernie,
    I know I said the culture is called capitalism. Why haven’t we moved past that yet?

  28. Russ the Bus says:

    social science = white supremacy

    most modernism = bullshit

  29. thoreauly77 says:

    d- i don’t get insulted in a comments thread because i am confident in who i am and my place in the world. this is all really just discussion anyhow, and it’s funny because in real life these kinds of conversations don’t happen so often anymore. no one wants to accidentally hurt anyone’s feelings, you know? the problem with that is this: if no one gets their feelings hurt or feels passionately about an issue, we have a culture of despondency (hee-hee).

    when all else fails, look for the most concise definition with regards to the context of the conversation — in this case, “culture”. using the definition of culture being an “Intellectual and artistic activity and the works produced by it”, it is easy to make the claim that hiphop is indeed a culture. now, we must say to ourselves, “so what spawned this culture?” the answer to that is your claim that the culture of capitalism created hip hop and the class of people left for dead, i.e. the creators. capitalism is an intellectual activity and unfortunately one of the works it spawned was the abject poverty that was at the essence of the creation of hiphop. you see, i think that’s why t-bone has a point. culture spawns culture. call hiphop a subculture of capitalism if this works best for you, or maintain that it is still not a culture.

    ernie- using the same logic, yes, porn is also a culture. it is also, as you discuss, an industry that serves capitalistic interests, much like hiphop. an interesting analogy here is that no matter what industry you are in, you are bound to get fucked and you’re not always going to like it.

    -out

  30. coqui says:

    fuck. i asked DP do put this up knowing it would start an interesting conversation i wanted to get it on, then i move when shit pops off. just got my internet connection set up today, shit happens.

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