Bindi The Crocodile Girl Hip Hops (And, You Can Too)

Wow! I saw Bindi Irwin (the late Steve Irwin’s daughter) on the Today Show. She was performing- singing, rapping, and dancing. What could have been a cute, even touching moment (everyone loves the Crocodile Hunter), was an embarrassing situation. Why? First of all, they had grown men (actually, they were teenaged boys- but next to her they looked like grown ups) dancing behind her. These guys were doing synchronized moves- looking like a really bad version of ‘NSync. The little girl can’t dance, sing or rap, so why put her through this? She already has a successful kid’s show- Bindi the Jungle Girl on Discovery Kids and Animal Planet that works and makes sense. On the program, she talks about animals and they are able to effectively recycle content from her dad’s show. But, dancing, singing and rapping? I’m not picking on Bindi, I’m actually saying that they are doing a disservice to her by putting her in this type of situation; it’s exploitation. Even with Michael Jackson, they say his dad was abusive and overworked his kids- no matter what your thoughts are on that, when you see old clips of little Michael performing, there’s nothing to be embarrassed of there; he was a phenom. Watching Bindi perform a rap track with stiff male dancers twice her size was painful.

That, in part, is the problem with the music industry and specifically Hip Hop right now. Everyone wants to be part of the show. Everyone wants to rap, dj, produce, and be a mogul. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to participate within the performance aspect of Hip Hop, but what’s problematic is that all of these wannabe hip hoppers are also expecting to monetize their efforts. This is a capitalist society, that’s fine, but what happens when everyone wants to be in the show? Where’s the audience? Today, it seems as though there aren’t any fans left; everyone wants to be in the game.

This has created an overall, decreased level of quality in the art form. Again, there’s nothing wrong with capitalizing from your art, but does something happen to the appreciation of the art when the pure motivation to participate is to “get paid”? Who’s doing it for the love and the craft of the art anymore?

It seems as though there is a blatant epidemic of entitlement in Hip Hop today. New artists who are just getting into this seem to have one goal in mind, “how do I get paid?”: No honing in on their skills, no paying dues, no stage show, no originality, nothing new is being brought to the scene, just the attitude of “I spit, so I should get paid.” Ultimately it’s the fault of the labels that have continued to put artists out with little more talent than that of their fans. Artist development does not exist. There was a time in Hip Hop’s early days when artists would have several singles released throughout the span of two to three years, and finally when the artist had built up their skills, and the fan base was built, then the album would drop. Today, you don’t really see this happening. Artist releases are dropped, and when they happen to hit, due to the almighty label-marketing dollar, the fans think- “man I can do that.” No wonder you have many thousands of wannabe artists thinking they can sell platinum records. Guess what? Major labels can barely sell platinum records nowadays.

This trend- putting out underdeveloped, undeserving rap artists- started in the early ‘90s and continues today. This is one of the reasons why music sales in general are on a consistent downward spiral; the quality of content in music is a rarity today. Fans don’t want to buy garbage when they can make their own phat beats. Especially today with every Mac being loaded with Garageband, and the availability of programs like Fruity Loops which make it possible for anyone to make music- technology has enabled everyone to join in. The labels aren’t putting out music that sounds any better than what you could make on your own- with little effort- at home, why would anyone want to buy their music. With the exception of the very young, who are lured to buy music (or actually harass their parents to buy it) as a result the strategic efforts executed by today’s version of commercial radio- The Disney Channel. Their formula- build a singer into the storyline of many of their TV shows, then after much repetition of those programs (ala commercial radio play), the kids are primed and ready to consume the music related merchandise of those pseudo performers. Ultimately, they’re the broadcaster and the releasing company: Think Clear Channel and Sony Music all in one.

So where does this leave us, the fans of real Hip Hop? Well, you’re left to dig for it in vinyl, and within the very Long Tail of the Internet. Don’t bother with traditional media outlets; they’re busy exploiting Hip Hop and Bindi.