mainstreem hip hop

Saw an article while doing paper research that I found interesting, and thought I’d share the idea with y’all. The article was about hip-hop, and it asked the question: “[D]oes black art still play a role as a place of sustenance for an oppressed people’s spirit, as a site of resistance?”. The article argued that there are two types of hip-hop, the more mainstream type, which has become highly commercialized, and the less mainstream type which is more about politics. I guess I’m interested in why the more commercialized stuff is so popular. Looking at the slam poetry, I found most of those poems to be great. With hard rock fading out and hip-hop coming in style, it’s interesting that there is rarely more than one song per artist that speaks about politics. Usually when I turn on the radio, the music is light, or has somewhat offensive lyrics, but a good beat. I just found it interesting that the author of the article was arguing that most of the smaller hip-hop artists spoke about political issues, while the mainstream ones didn’t—the author argued that it is the smaller hip-hop voices that give oppressed people something to work for, while the main ones help stifle them. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that this is true for almost all music—not just hip-hop. I know it’s an extreme view, but I still found it something worth thinking about.