Postmortem hip-hop

“For only things that die can be reborn. Hip-hop is already dead, though it’s taken the industry longer than expected to memorialize it. It’s been on life support for some time, and we all know that there’s been no indication of brain activity for years. Yet we hesitate to pull the plug. We know it’s dead because we allowed a 37-year-old husband and father who’s done nothing but contribute in the most positive way to hip-hop to end his life on a studio floor looking into the eyes of another brother.”
This is part of a column written by Tonya Pendelton, a BET.com staff writer in response to the recent deaths of hip-hop idols.  On the website’s message board, this piece received much attention from hip-hop lovers and haters. One of the ultimate lovers who responded is one of my best friends, Wendell Tucker, a film major at Chicago State University. The self-professed “hip-hop connoisseur” had much to say on the subject of hip-hop’s untimely death, as described by Pendelton.  So this week, I’m turning it over to you, bruh.  Don’t ever say I never gave you anything.  Much love.
I disagree. If you believe hip-hop is people talking about killing, drugs, violating women and valuing jewelry more than your own life, then you have been misinformed as have been many people. But if you know hip-hop as I know it: a free flowing medium for people involved in the culture to enjoy, be educated by and express oneself, then you know that hip-hop is not dead.
Make no mistake; there is an IMPOSTER on the loose. This imposter is the cause of the deaths of Tupac, Biggie and most recently, Jam Master Jay. This imposter values material more than anything else and teaches our children to do the same. This is the same impostor that teaches our children to not know that they can produce a television show rather than just act in it. It teaches them that they should go to school to play basketball instead of learning algebra.
We must look at the bigger picture and not scapegoat yet another one of our precious art forms. Hip-hop is not the source of this misdirection and violence. It existed long before hip-hop. A true hip-hop experience always leaves me beaming. The impostor always brings my spirits down. The hard part is telling the two apart.