What is Hip-Hop? Better yet what is music? Dictionary.com has the following
1.
an art of sound in time that expresses ideas and emotions in significant forms through the elements of rhythm, melody, harmony, and color.
The most important part in that definition to me is “expresses ideas” and for me that was what I thought when I first heard Hip-Hop as a kid. It was a new way musically of “Expressing ideas”. Groups that came out were expressing how it was to live in their neighborhoods and cities. The art of “telling a story” cleverly while rhyming over a beat was an amazing refreshing new experience. It was originally laughed at and mocked as a passing fade and junk music. But now today in the present hip-hop is so main stream and ingrained in Americana that you can’t go a day without seeing something that has been influenced by the genre. But does the acceptance by the general public somehow diminish the edge that Hip-hop once had. Some would say yes that all A&R heads are looking for are turnkey groups with the same formula, saggy pants, foul-mouthed, misogynistic young men running around proclaiming how much money they have and how the party never stops. It is almost funny that so many of these young rappers don’t really come from the “hood” but actually grow up in suburbia. So where do you go to get back to that edge that new “fresh”, different vibe that first caught your ear all those many years ago. I thought I might not ever get that feeling again then I came across these young cats called “Odd Future“. They are out of Los Angeles and the surrounding area and guess what they’re new, fresh, different. They are not the regular turnkey rapper super group. They happen to be kids who grew up with the internet, they know the vibe of it, they are in tune with their generation and they are different. Black kids who skate, wear vans and rap about anything that comes too their mind. I have to admit that visually and lyrically some of it might shock but that is what is so great about it. It’s the thought process of today’s teens. Check them out here as they appeared on Jimmy Fallon back in February and watch Fallon’s face during performance.