Music And Their Message

I was listening to some hip hop the other day. Or whatever they call it now. Or some variant of it I haven't heard about, being "a man from another time". And I'm sorry, but what a lot of illiterate, juvenile, posturing horseshit it seemed to my small hairy ears. That's the way we talked in school when we were trying to make the other kids think we were tough; that we did something with our evenings other than go home, watch "Blue Peter" and read comics until bedtime.

Although I believe that the more basic art forms condition the minds of those who are exposed to them, and that therefore some people who listen to this crap will be prone to the primitive language and behaviour it glorifies--in other words,that it isn't necessarily a game of projecting what one imagines, mystifyingly, to be a heroic personality. Hip hop has been around for a long, long time, and it may have helped degrade a whole generation.

It doesn't seem to have changed that much in its sound and rhythms and preoccupations either, despite its incredible longevity, though it has become less and less socially responsible as time has passed.Where are the Chuck Ds of yesteryear, eh? They knew that you don't beat poverty and oppression by turning yourself into a grotesque of the newspaper image your oppressors have of you.