Wack-italism

Back in February, Bronx mainstays Showbiz and KRS-One collaborated to release Godsville, a relatively short, yet potent record combining Show's intelligently understated beats and KRS' firey lyrical propagation of Hip Hop culture. At the beginning of 'Running in the Dark' (see below) KRS says: "I aint tryna live poor, but we were created out of poverty...its what we DIDN'T have that created Hip Hop...The minimum, not the maxium. Makin a dollar outa 15 cents..." Word: "Thass real", as he puts it... Check this article by Aisha Ali:


Hip-hop meets its ultimate fate: Hip-hop surrenders to capitalism (dollar dollar bill, ya'll)

This article on Hip Hop and capitalism, along with the words of KRS-One got me thinking about how movements can so often be corrupted by "the Man" and his intentions for power and wealth. A comparison in religion can be seen in the example of Christianity, which by becoming the official religion of various forms of Western imperialism, changed from a movement of peace, to a legitimiser of military force. What began as an underground movement, became attached to THE power, thus compromising its fledgling vitality, its simplicity, and its contextual impact. Christendom may have spread [or diluted?] Christianity over thousands of miles, but arguably it corrupted the positive messages at its root. From the perspective of theological authenticity, this was one of the worst things that could've happened to it. In the same way, Hip Hop's appropriation by capitalism has damaged its authenticity and made it WACK. It has been appropriated, re-packaged, re-defined and distrubuted to the mainstream, all of which boils-down to hard currency for the record label executives. As Aisha Ali writes in the article above: 'Hip Hop has become too diffuse to be meaningful as it used to be in the past.' According to KRS, being "gutter" is a self-evident quality of Hip Hop, and so in many respects those parts of it which are defined by consumer capitalism can be called 'dead', because they compromise the raw simplicity that made Hip Hop what it was in the beginning. This is a damn shame, and explains why most people associate Hip Hop with talentless fuckery. But thankfully, the underground continues to be steadfast in all respects; representing the REAL to those who won't accept the compromised wackness of capitalism. WORD