Hip-Hop Politics

In several recent conversations, friends who know I’m a hip-hop fan asked me about the difference between rap and hip-hop. My basic response is, “attitude; positive and negative.” Hip-hop has a positive attitude that’s reflected in bouncing beats, playful rhymes, and a can-do political sensibility. “Gangsta” rap, in contrast, is characterized by harsh or menacing vocals, driving and repetitive drums, and a worldview consumed by money, violence, drugs, and commoditized sex (in roughly descending order of importance). I found it interesting, then, that an article today in the Christian Science Monitor predicts that “the hip-hop world and the gangsta world are about to collide,” as more true hip-hoppers see the need to make clear that the “gangsta fairy tale” is just that: a made up story to sell to children."