Hip Hop: An Aesthetic Look into the Art

"Political rap" was actually something of an invention. The Bronx community-center dances and block parties where hip-hop began in the early 1970s were not demonstrations for justice, they were celebrations of survival. Hip-hop culture simply reflected what the people wanted and needed--escape. - http://www.thenation.com/doc/20030113/chang

I have yet to read Jeff Chang's new book, Total Chaos: The Art and Aesthetics of Hip Hop, however I do hope it is a catalyst in defining Hip Hop as an Art and what makes it viable. And it is certainly, on my short list of books to read.

I was a complete mess over the weekend, thinking about Hip Hop...I couldn't sleep. And, I wanted to talk about it. So, I called my buddy, and a Ph.D. Graduate Student in Philosophy at DePaul University in Chicago, James. Over a bottle of wine and over the phone, we carefully, and candidly discussed the ideas that were causing my insomnia.

I began seeing Hip Hop as dialectical in nature. An art form born out of the housing projects in the Bronx, an American invention, created and needed by a community for self-expression, and as quoted from above "celebrations of survival". I call it an American invention, because this is where it started...and from here is where it spread- to the points in which we now have German, French, and Japanese Hip Hop. Hip Hop is an international phenomena that can be found almost anywhere in the world. Which leads me to believe that there was something, a seed, beyond the political messages that later popularized the art form, beyond whether what remains mainstream or underground, that for something only born in the early 70's, seemed to have spread across the globe.

The world all over took Hip Hop and it branched and churned, and changed, and began to fit into every culture somehow, and from white college students, yuppies, dance clubbers, and from the community that brought us the art form- it was catching on, and caught on. I don't want to get into the different genres of Hip Hop, nor its historical stages, nor its controversial points, nor its cultural implications, nor what it means to different racial communities. We all have a general understanding of American History. Hip Hop was born in a place founded on land usurped from the Native Americans. It is music born out of the projects; of course it will have controversy. I have been living and working in NY for more than three years, and every panel I have attended from the New School, to Columbia, to NYU, and to panel discussions at The Lincoln Center for Jazz; panelists will always get caught in the conundrum of these cultural, political, gender-specific arguments, and then there are those who will just flat out argue that Hip Hop is dead. And, those who argue that don't necessarily believe their own statements. More so, they mean, the art, aesthetics, creative structure, and inspiration of the form.

I want to know what makes it Hip Hop. What makes Hip Hop..Hip Hop?

Rock n' Roll, which also has had a history of controversy in America has been fondly toted as "Sex, Drugs, and Rock n' Roll." And like Punk, Hardcore, Metal, Thrash, etc. certain music forms have come along with a sub culture. Does Hip Hop necessarily have to connect itself with the sub culture that trailed along with it? Even, if we are just looking at Hip Hop, and its musicality? What is Hip Hop removed from that? Is it still Hip Hop? I am inclined to say, yes.

What made Hip Hop spread? What about it, musically, artistically, made it a form that can be flexed by other languages, cultures, and countries? What was the environment in the Bronx and how did it contribute to the spontaneous birth of this art form? What are its greatest affinities and why? What can Hip Hop be, removed from education in urban communities, advertising to youth and minority populations, removed from all the propagandist uses that the media has employed? And removed from understanding it as a movement? Hip Hop, like the art of drama, the art of tragedy, we need to look at what makes Hip Hop beautiful. What is Hip Hop based on its aesthetics and origin?

Possibly, in the end, a Philosophy of Hip Hop might be in order and a strict look into Hip Hop Aesthetics. Colleges and universities have been including Hip Hop academics, mostly in Sociology, African American Studies, and American Studies into its programs due to much interest from students. These Hip Hop studies span from linguistics, music theory, and music history as well. And, these interests have provoked the organization of Hip Hop archives at both Harvard and Stanford University. I think Philosophical research in Hip Hop is indeed worth pursuing. A Hip Hop, that can be boiled down and removed, if possible from it's cultural context of being "black music". Hip Hop just as it is...what is it? What is it, when we are not arguing about bling, derogatory messages, gang violence, the difference between labels of conscious and mainstream rap, and even our argument of whether or not it's dead...we have to slowly peel away all of these other things that have become somewhat outbursts of the phenomenon. Bring ourselves down to only one argument...What is Hip Hop? And only then can we begin discrediting other forms that don't fit, if there are such principles of Hip Hop that make it universal.