Celebrating Black History Month
I hope that the world doesn't see this post as being the ramblings of an "old head" that is too much into lyricism. While that seems to be true, the following point remains painfully clear: history needs to be studied differently. While I am for the idea of a black history month - even though history transcends the idea of race - as a time to speak about the successes of black people across the world, something often gets forgotten. That something is Hip-Hop.
Let's be frank, Hip-Hop has become a staple of the music industry since, at least, 1986, with the release of the Aerosmith / RUN DMC collaboration, "Walk This Way". However, history classes and organisations across the world tend to forget the importance that Hip-Hop had on the black community in the past forty years. It became the voice for the voiceless and a medium of expression that has created a generation of arguably more cultured people.
While some people would talk about the negative examples of when Hip-Hop is purely used for elements such as having a good time, professing mind-numbing misogyny or whatever one calls Blueface's music, it still has its place in history. Hip-Hop has been the place for the most quiet of protests in the largest of platforms: a revolution heard in your ears and spread throughout your veins. These eventually spread into ideas and growth in the black community.
Conscious Hip-Hop, the socially honest one that doesn't always make it to the radio, is the primary source for that. We can learn so much about society and the ways that it needs to change just by listening to some of these tracks. While we may not have the solutions yet, I think that change is possible. Black people need to be nicer with one another, support one another and give back to one another for the times that we helped each other. My guess is that this idealist world first thought about by the likes of the great Dr Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers and Malcolm X, can begin with music and prayer.
There are some seminal tracks in Hip-Hop history that have a good message and support black artists:
"Fight the Power" Public Enemy
"Cops Shot the Kid" Nas
"This is America" Childish Gambino
"Black America Again" Common feat. Stevie Wonder
"Smile" Jay Z feat. Gloria Carter
"Changes" Tupac
Happy black history month; hold one another and remember how far we have come and how far we still need to go. Thank you.