Welcome to the Hood Take 2

In the last blog post, Connor did a fantastic job of looking at totems and culture of different sub genres of hip hop in different locations across the country. Another way to look at the importance of location, totems, and culture is to think more in the big picture and about the whole of the hip hop community.

While it’s true that hip hop from different locations do in fact embrace different sounds and totems there are also unifying characteristics across the board. A totem is not simply an object with significance to a group of people, it can also be anything that serves as a distinctive symbol. I believe that the universal topics of importance as well as the importance of location serve as a symbol of the culture that hip hop music evolved from.

From the start, hip hop music was created for urban working class African Americans. Location became important because artists had to connect with listeners. Many famous rappers came from poor, working class, black communities and spoke of their struggles as a minority. The intended audience could easily relate which aided in the growth and popularity of the genre of music. Where a rapper is from can also make or break their credibility. While it may have been easy for listeners to relate to rappers sharing tales of their time living in the hood, if it came to light that they never were a part of the struggle they portray, people lose respect the them and their music.

‘The Struggle’ is probably the most prominent totem I see uniting all hip hop music. Throughout history, artists have rapped about inequality, police brutality, poverty, misrepresentation, and oppression. No matter where you’re from, east coast, west coast, Midwest, or down south, rappers and their audience all have something in common: struggle. Older songs like Biggie’s “Everyday Struggle”

 and newer songs like Kanye’s “Family Business” 

and recent songs like “The Don” by Nas 

show that this common link has transcended over time (1994-2004-2012) and space (Biggie and Nas are from Brooklyn while Kanye is from Atlanta).

 Another common totem across hip hop music is the influence of gangs and prostitution in everyday life. Children who grow up in poverty and in urban areas are likely to join a gang in order to find some kind of support system they cannot get at home. The gang then becomes their family. The song “Heartless” by Black Attack is about a pimp taking in a 12 year old girl because he needed more hos.

 The benefits of having a pimp for support and making money was probably very attractive to young females. Even “Dance with the Devil” by Immortal Technique that we had to listen to a few weeks ago speaks of the influence of gangs in the life of a young boy. His crew’s acceptance is so important to him that he is willing to rape and kill someone.

The last thing I’ll present to you is kind of unrelated to the rest of my post. Connor shared songs from different music scenes across the country, and being from Maryland, I wanted to share with y’all a taste of the Baltimore hip hop scene. This is “Take Da Hood” by Mullyman.