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History is completely fluid, far more so than the present. The past can be remoulded into a shape that makes more sense for the intellegentsia who are scared that the truth will render their belief structures irrelevant.

This revising of history for the present’s sake hit hip-hop in the mid 90’s, when the early days of the music form were impossibly romanticized as the heart of the new black renaissance, with no attention thrown at the baser instincts, at the movement. As such, the resultant fleet of critically created conscious rappers ruled the day and were heralded as the true, distilled representation of what hip-hop was initially intended to be.

This, of course, was foolish and fundamentally untrue. Despite being the most clear, honest voice of modern oppressed people, hip-hop was not obsessed with leather medallions and Lonnie Liston Smith club sessions. Essentially, the main motivation for hip-hop was being cool. The original crucible for hip-hop was the block, and the coolest people on the block were and are drug dealers, because they had the cash, which gave them the gear, the fundamental moxie that separated them from the rest of the planet. So, essentially, hip-hop could never be all that concerned with the growth of a people, because it fell from the corners of a hustle built on the sweat and tears of addicted young men.

However, with that said, hip-hop kept its hustle influence limited to purely aesthetic and associative levels. They dressed like the dealers, stood next to the dealers, but they rapped about rapping.

Nowadays, it seems as though to be a signed rapper, you need to have either retired from drug dealing or juggling your kilo shipping business with studio and tour dates. This music always was close to drugs, but it never had its head jammed so far up its own crack as it does now.

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