Word: hip
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...rapper Nas released an album several years ago titled Hip Hop Is Dead. The first line of your book is "Hip hop is not dead, but it is gravely ill." Why do you think that? Many people would say it died a long time...
When Nas said hip-hop is dead, it was really a way of making the statement I think that I'm making. He obviously doesn't think it's entirely dead, or he wouldn't continue to labor there - but he is concerned about it enough to put people on notice that it is in the ICU ward. It was more a metaphor than a reality. But I think that there is no question that commercial hip-hop - that is dead. But there is an incredibly rich world of hip-hop that has been literally buried. I tell my friends...
Coincidentally, I was watching the concert movie Dave Chappelle's Block Party the other night, in which he puts on a bunch of these alternative hip-hop artists that you talk about in your book - Common, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Kanye West. Other than Kanye, why don't these artists sell as well as the Jay-Zs or the 50 Cents...
...always urban people, but the same images can be found in American history for centuries. So this idea that a certain kind of sexual deviance or violent behavior defines black culture has had a huge market in commercial mainstream culture for at least 200 years. Also, sexist images, which hip-hop has a lot of, seem to do very well across the cultural spectrum. So sexuality and sexual domination sell. Racial stereotypes sell. The market is more consolidated, which makes it easier for those images to perpetuate themselves...
...very creative. It's the substance. What are you making metaphors about 24 hours a day? Same thing with Jay-Z. Even he has acknowledged that he's "dumbed his music down" so that he can sell records. This economic imperative has had more of an impact on hip-hop than [on] rock or soul...