The Love I Lost...

I love Hip Hop.
We shared a lot.
We grew together.

I knew when I was a kid that I'd never outgrow Hip Hop. There were so many subcultures that either I could not or wasn't ready to get at, so I was patient. I hung with my older brother when Hip Hop made it's impact and we were determined (along with some other kids from my block) that we would be a part of that impact. We were so raw and unrefined, the same way Hip Hop was in the early eighties. As my childhood best friend Elton would say, it was love.

I joined the Army under the delayed entry program in 1988. I was still a kid and Hip Hop had grown into this awkward kid that was fresh to def. Everybody loved the vibe given off, there were vulgarities, but at that time there was balance. Everything in Hip Hop had its place. We were happy to see the sub cultures that made up Hip Hop all get their due. Then something happened.

Nah, not the raping of our culture by corporate America. Not that. It was the way we just gave up on taking something we created to the next level. We let Hip Hop leave and we never really got it back, but we waited. While we waited, all of that hope created by Ministers Malcolm and Martin got lost. Marcus' idea to go back to Africa with the Black Star Line faded in history. When I graduated high school and entered the Army, Nelson Mandela was not yet free. A lot of energy was put into getting him released and eliminating Aparthied from control of South Africa. Boy, that Black Star Line would have done wonders if it would have gotten revamped and used for purposes of helping our distant cousins. But our focus was not there. Hip Hop had us, and over the years we became desensitized by the bullshit that was funded by big music. We lost ourselves trying to keep up when we should have taken Hip Hop back and kept it real. The day Hip Hop and its byproducts started making billions for those that had no clue what is was before their investment was the day it lost most of its realness. Now of course there is an underground...

Which leads me to today. Fake ass rappers. Fake ass role models (not for the kids either). Impossible situations placed in the laps of the impressionable. Now control has been conveyed to those that do not have our best interests in mind. I can no longer listen to the music. I do not see the graffiti. The DJs are wack. Breaking is an exhibition that travels with the UniverSoul Circus. Nothing about Hip Hop is real anymore, and I have been made sick of it. Just as refine sugars, high fructose corn syrup and dairy have destroyed the African man and woman's internal systems making obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancers commonplace in our community due to overconsumption of it, Hip Hop in its mainstream state has caused a mutation of sorts, turning out an evil hybrid of B-Boy, unaware of his history and unashamed of his actions against those that embrace him. He is vulgar and disrespectful, greedy and hoarding all that he should share. He has not given back. Has not shared and will not anytime soon. He has no good news, always depressed and spreading death and disease to those that consume him, and he must be destroyed. Even the machines that created the Matrix destroyed it 6 times before getting it right.


I need Hip Hop back. In its original glory. The current incarnation is killing us.
I cannot support mainstream Hip Hop anymore.
I need to grow with the real again.