The Gentrification of Hip Hop

 by: Courtland Hankins

photo credit: Gordon Cowie

From The South Bronx… The South-South Bronx… to... SoBro… So SoBro….Hip Hop… Black America’s most recent cultural response to the oppressive history we are all so familiar with. This piece is on the current gentrification of Hip Hop. Gentrification is defined as follows: the process of renovating and improving a house or district so that it conforms to middle-class taste. In street terms, it means that white folk has decided that they want to move into Black neighborhoods and reshape the community to meet their values. There is usually not much Black folk can do about it, because the truth is, this system, politically and economically is controlled by White folk. We are treated as guests in their house! Honestly, the term guests would be an overstatement. We are treated as servants in their houses. Lord Jamar, whose feud with Eminem is well chronicled, stated that Eminem is a guest in the house of Hip Hop. He’s saying that all “White folk who participate in Hip Hop are guests in the “Culture” - that White folk should not get it twisted and think that they have any controlling interest in the “Culture” - no matter how skilled they may be. I agree with that sentiment wholeheartedly. There are very few things of value in this construct that Black people control. Hip Hop is one of those things. I would say we control it politically, however, we do not control it economically - and that is where the battle is being waged. White folks' economic might is formidable, and their desire to use that might to control the narrative of something that they deem valuable is challenging to offset. I believe it is of the utmost importance that we do not allow the battle to be lost. It is ok to claim what we created as our own, to raise our baby if you will. White folk has been used to controlling our babies and using them as they see fit, see slavery for a reference. I’ll say it again, see slavery as a reference.

 White folk is irresistibly drawn to Hip Hop, just like all of our cultural creations that preceded Hip Hop, i.e., Blues, Jazz, Rock n Roll, etc. Hip Hop is a bit different because we have created a gate around the “culture” and have been able to maintain our keepership. Some White folk like to claim that they’ve been apart from the beginning as if to say they are not guests in the house. Ironically, white folk is a very important reason why Hip Hop exists. No, I’m not talking about cat’s like Rick Rubin or Paul “C” McCosky – who’s early contributions I respect very much by the way, and more modern-day artists like Eminem and the late Mac Miller (my favorite white rapper) – I’m talking about the oppressive system of white supremacy, who without white people behind that there would be no such thing as Hip Hop as we know it. Funny story, I was at a Hip Hop event this past summer and one of the panelists suggested that we should be grateful for the slavery, jim crow, etc. because it was that experience that brought us, Hip Hop. Nahhh, I don’t endorse that statement in the least bit, however, the point is that without the tragic historical experience, Hip Hop would not have been created to be a response to it. I mention this because it does give us a true representation of White folk’s initial relationship with Hip Hop. Hip Hop is a voice for the voiceless, a medium for the oppressed to testify to their experience, to express their needs, desires and wants, to speak life into their dreams. Hip Hop was and is a phenomenal force of manifestation. But like everything the original people create and every valuable resource at our disposal, the colonizers must control it. Make no mistake about it, colonizer and gentrifier are closely related and both move in the same spirit. They share the ultimate goal of controlling the landscape and eventually replacing the native with their likeness – on all fronts. Hip Hop is the most powerful culturally creative force on the planet and has a World Bank filled with deposits of mind currency. It is explicitly a Black thing that wields tremendous influence, much of it untapped. Hip Hop is a Black Planet, both feared and desired by the colonizer for 1: it’s the ability to destroy the colonizer and 2: because of their envy of their inability to create something of such natural value. So what does the colonizing mind do? It gentrifies. It creates a plan to control and eventually consume the resource. How is this currently happening?

photo credit: Derrick Treadwell

 It’s been going on since the beginning. Hip Hop is just a continuation of the warfare between the so-called black and white construct in this country. The battle for the white supremacist system to control the mind and spirit of black folk and for black folk to take back control of our mind and spirit. Twenty-five years ago, Ice Cube said in an interview with ABC News, ‘that although the white corporate structure is making the most money, what Hip Hop has to give is deeper than money." He mentioned that "Hip Hop distributes information and circulates mental money. Hip Hop has the minds of masses, and that is more valuable than the fiat currency at the end of the day." However, the White structure still has the money and a long-standing history of utilizing it’s monetary and institutional influence to break down the strongest of Black movements. That is where the gentrification of Hip Hop comes in. Gentrification has a friendlier face but is aligned with the same colonizing intent because it is ultimately designed and funded by the colonizing mind. Middle-class White America has been infatuated with Hip Hop since the beginning and has desired to find its place within the “Culture”. Much of the issue is that the infatuation is rooted in an ignorance of Hip Hop’s true roots and purpose, and fawns over the more “shallow” surface side of the “Culture”. It has taken 40 years, but the gentrification of Hip Hop is in full effect. There are more and more White rappers and artistic representatives to coincide with the already existing White majority corporate powerhouse. That is a recipe for a full coup. We cannot let that happen. I repeat we cannot let that happen. That doesn’t mean that white folk or anyone else for that matter can’t participate in Hip Hop. However, it does mean that they must know and to the best of their ability, learn and understand the roots of Hip Hop, the purpose of Hip Hop, in order to play a part in the empowerment of Hip Hop and the larger Black culture it represents. There can be no mistake that Hip Hop is for the empowerment of Black people and through that, it is for the empowerment of the world. That is the order. We’ve seen this happen before, over and over again… from The Blues to blue-eyed Jesus, White folk have mastered gentrification and remixing our creations and history to serve their self-interests. So how do we stop it? Well, that is up to my generation of Hiphoppa’s who are now adults, with children and grandchildren, professionals in places of influence like schools, banks, government, corporations, etc. It is up to us to preserve and realign our “Culture”, facts! We cannot leave Hip Hop out there to be taken, continually exploited. We cannot devalue our creations and our creative force. Not at all. That is why there is a President of Hip Hop. To make sure that our Blues is not in vain, but is the ancestral force energizing Hip Hop to push forward, to stay self-controlled, and to Stay Black!