The Current State of Hip-Hop

Earlier this week on Monday, a presentation over the state of black music was to be held and hosted by the Southern University College of Sciences and Engineering and SU’s Criminal Justice Department, but due to the weather and campus closure, it was cancelled.
Despite the cancellation, that does not stop the discussion about the current state of hip-hop and the many opinions surrounding it and how it affects the African-American community.
With hip-hop being one of the most prominent genres of music in the black community, it is easily accessible from the tip of one’s fingertips to simply turning on the radio to an urban or hip-hop station.
Insert Kwabena Rasuli; Chicago native, Southern University alum, and the creator of the “Clear the Airwaves” project.
Rasuli created the project with the efforts to remove negative hip hop content from the radios and get them to realize the harm that is being done to African American youth.
When asked about the current state of hip hop, Rasuli described it as “commercially sad, embarrassing and dangerous”.
So what is the current state of hip hop?
On a financial level, hip hop has been very prosperous. In a recent interview with Billboard, Diddy says that hip hop “is the most successful and most popular it’s ever been”.
This could be simply due to the simple fact that there is more money in hip hop compared to the 80s and 90s as well as more exposure to the masses.
In a piece from a website called “Diary of a Mad Mind”, the writer shares this same sentiment stating, “In the 80s and 90s there was still not a lot of money in Hip Hop … new artists were not getting 35 to 40 grand a show with only a single out. Most artists were not getting paid endorsement deals from multi-national companies”.
Compared to now, you have artists like Lil Yachty being featured in Sprite commercials and Chance the Rapper being in a Kit Kat commercial.
Of course there were no social media platforms to boost these artists and build their brand in the 80s and 90s.
Football Coach and History professor, Ashton Warner, says, “From the financial side, hip hop is doing better now than ever before. It has created many millionaires, whom without it may possibly have never achieved such wealth. That’s in part due to the fact that the market has crossed over into mainstream suburban America as well as the inner city. Rap music today exists in every part of American daily life whether you want it to or not.”
If it wasn’t for money and social media would these rappers be as popular or would they be working as hard?
18-year-old biology major from Bastrop, Louisiana, Cameron Freeze, says, “Nowadays I think everyone is more caught up on the hooks of songs the beats of songs, and the vulgarity and the eccentricity. Like they have to have something strange or super unique in their appearance, speech, or in the way the carry themselves.” He also expresses that, “hip hop is going down the drain with rappers like Tekashi 69 who have been accused and convicted of sexual abuse to minors and things of the sort. There are few glimmers of hope, but everyone just needs to be themselves and stop fronting for social media.”