You can’t be Hip Hop by wearing diamonds in your mouth. Hip Hop won’t be found in a Bently or an Aston Martin. Wearing brand names like Roca Wear, LRG, or Sean Jean won’t make you anymore a part of Hip Hop than rocking gear from Russell Simmons’ American Classics brand at Wal-Mart. Lingo, slang, swagger, jewelry, playing car jacking themed video games or sporting expensive headphones with a letter “b” on them won’t make you anymore Hip Hop than rapping about how hardcore you are will make you legit. It’s ironic that today’s so called “Hip Hop heads” rely on corporate entities and brands to tell them what Hip Hop is. Most don’t understand this, but they’re taking cues from the most removed from Hip Hop, suits who sit in midtown Manhattan boardrooms strategizing on how to have you dress, drive, eat, and what to listen to and watch in order to believe you’re Hip Hop and monetize that belief. In reality, Hip Hop isn’t something you can buy into with a credit card, not even this one. Regardless of what rap videos, marketers, liquor ads, scandalous tv shows that glamorize greed, exploitation and conflict or even your hip friends tell you, those things are not and will never be Hip Hop. And, Hip Hop isn’t a birthright either. You’re not the embodiment of Hip Hop because you were born in a particular geographic zone or to a particular background.
So, what is Hip Hop?
I’ll let the late Dondi White tell you. You’ll notice he never even says the words (Hip Hop), but he was a living, breathing, example of what that is. He wasn’t a rapper, a DJ, a trendsetter, or a mogul, but he was indeed Hip Hop.
In reality, Hip Hop was a culture created by inner city youths nearly 30 years ago in times of desperation and poverty. It was a creative outlet and an antidote for kids otherwise consumed by urban blight. Hip Hop is a beautiful thing because it empowered the powerless and provided a voice for the voiceless. That’s the Hip Hop I was a witness to during its birth in The Bronx in the ’70s and ’80s. It was positive, enlightening, enriching, inspiring, and powerful. Are you Hip Hop?
Israel Vasquetelle
