Hip Hop vs America

So, for the first time in years I wished that I’d had cable or satellite, specifically BET…Black Entertainment Television. They were finally showing something that I was excited to see, Hip Hop vs America . I was geeked to watch it, so I did what anyone would expect, I downloaded it off the net (gotta love new media…but that's a entirely different blog post). I excitedly watched as they introduced some of my favorite scholarly hip hop voices like Michael Dyson, Nelson George and Chuck D. A relative unknown, Jeff Johnson, acted as the moderator and I can tell you I soon realized…this was going to be some BULLSHIT. With its constant finger pointing blame game the "squares" looked like a gang trying to pick on the "popular" kids for being, well…popular. They insisted on accusing the artist, those represented, Nelly, T.I., Mike Jones saying that they needed to defend their artistic expression and success. The artist shouldn’t have to defend their art, they’re artist. They should be free to explore whatever art they feel worthwhile. I acknowledge there is some value in hearing first hand why an artist chooses to do what they do, but only if what they do actually matters artistically or was met with some well-formed artistic criticism. However, this was not an issue of art, what this discussion all came down to was money, who controls it and who exploits for it. To me the focus, along with the supposed problem, seemed contrived and misdirected especially when considering the source.

The real problem is media as a machine, not media as an art. The entertainment industry, driven by its insatiable capitalist gluttony, currently has significantly more influence and control over Hip Hop as a product than the Hip Hop artist or the art form itself. How was this about Hip Hop vs America when the title itself was misleading. First of all, the series has very little to do with Hip Hop, and with all of the focus being put on the artist and their music videos, it didn't seem to have much to do with America either. Let's start with the fact that it is on BET…Black Entertainment Television, which is owned by Viacom, a media conglomerate, which is not Black owned. But even when it was Black owned, BET was the first in line to re-enforce negative stereotypes with music video after music video showing nothing but the best in sex, money, violence and comedy. Even when MTV and VH1 wouldn't play it you could rest assured that BET would step up to the plate. How ironic is it that BET felt the need to run this series, as if they are somehow the vanguard of subtenant programming. The exaggerated need to make it a three part series along with the urgency to call it a “special” simply felt more like an effort on the part of BET to exploit an opportunity to increase their viewership. It felt as if they created this forum not because they actually cared about the negative affects of Hip Hop, but because they were fully aware that 4 out of 5 people who consumed Hip Hop were white and therefore ripe for the picking by touting an “Us against Them” concept, or in this case, Hip Hop vs America. This wasn't even about Hip Hop as a culture but rap music as an industry. The only mention I caught of Hip Hop was acknowledging that the purest form of Hip Hop is no longer found in the U.S. but is nurtured in far away lands like France where they embrace, B-Boying, Djing, Emceeing and Graphing. So this farce was really about Rap music and the lucrative yet unscrupulous industry that it has spawned.

If there is a problem with Hip Hop it revolves around its willingness as an art form to allow itself to be fragmented and pimped by the media machine for the purpose of pure capitalism. Many of these scholars spend their time barking about what an artist should do. Let's set aside that these artists who are in many regards enjoying a life of work doing what get's them paid and what they like, not necessarily in that order, but hey, who do you know with a job or a career for that matter, who is not fully aware of what they must do to make a living? And how many more do you know who don't completely like what they do but still do it? I find it interesting that so many people who fit in these categories will place an artist so high on a pedestal that they expect them to be the embodied voice of morality and purpose. Now let's be clear, I do feel that artists are blessed. Being a mediamaker aka film artist I regularly tell people that I am blessed, because I have never had a job…since a job is that thing that most people dread going to in the morning. But me, when I wake up, even groggy and tired at 5 in the morn, I feel appreciative, because I am waking up to do film. That's my blessing. I feel that people need not invest so much energy into the artist. Consider redirecting the energy towards the actual capitalist media machine, which maximizes the desires of the consumer. Now hold on a minute, I acknowledge that the media is also significantly responsible for molding and influencing the consumers desires, but that has less to do with the artist and a great deal to do with the consumer and the media as a capitalist machine to be, well…a capitalist machine. These people are in business to make money and dammit that's what they are doing. If you want to change the programming options…stop watching the BULLSHIT and in the words of another BET moment…
"Read a book muthafucka! Read a book muthafucka!"

Rubin Whitmore II is a mediamaker and media scholar with deep roots in music videos and Hip Hop. He is working on several documentaries exploring Media and its Impacts on Society.

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