is the conscious rapper dead?

[Anna Sasin]

Sosiba your post is so spot on.

Talib is afraid of having to carry the mantle of being 'conscious' and 'socially responsible' because then he would have to be accountable to the people.

He is dodging and weaving so that people don't quite know where he stands on any issue.
When he said he could cosign Slim Thug's negative comments about black women, just because he
wrote 'Brown Skin Lady', proving he was above reproach, I realised he uses his past music and influence as a buffer for valid criticism. He is confused.

And yeah,his flow now is just...annoying.

[RearrangedReality]

Forgive me brother, I might be derailing your thread but this is my take on "conscious" rappers.

Hip hop has definately played a huge part in developing my consciousness. I mean I read "The Bluest Eye" by Toni Morrison after hearing BlackStar's Thieves in the night joint, just to give an example.

So I've always been a "conscious" Hip Hop head and as norm would have it I detested any other "sub-genre". But the more I got into it the more flaws I found within it. The 1st one was how I realised that the poor, the ma**es are nothing but artistic subjects to many artists. To me it seemed they derived some enjoyment out of writing about the often tragic subjects they wrote about, or at least some attachment. But then the danger with this, as I once argued with a friend is that, at least subconsciously, they are not really willing to take action regarding the plight of those they write about because once change happens and there are no more poor, destitute, down trodden then they lose an artistic subject, a source of enjoyment. So it seemed they needed the poor (I limit myself to those rappers who write about the poor, the "people" because those are the ones I really liked) to exist so as to not lose an artistic subject.

I became more convinced of this after having attended many peotry shows and the likes, these guys, we, seem to have the problem of acquiring knowledge for the sake of knowing, to gain some intellectual superiority over our peers. So resistance, rebellion, become "cool" when for many these are hard realities. I then had to accept that perhaps I did not get into Hip Hop for any more deep reason than a house kat got into house; to be cool. Think : that Hippies' episode in SouthPark. Having been struck by this, I realised that art will NEVER spark any revolution (in any sense of the word) because we like so much to be different for its own sake, finding our "own space" within society that a drastic change in society, which is what the many people we profess to speak for actually need threatens our own selfish interests.

Then there's the abstract rappers. I think Nyiko, a friend of mine was right when he said a person living in a shack has no time to think about "100 deaths", "Life being an illusion", "Belief in Alliens" etc because for that person the problems are very basic (Warmth in winter, food, clothes etc) without insulting their intelligence. But we, well fed, well sheltered can occupy ourselves with such in the same way that the Greeks could excel in philosophy and art because they had slaves to do the real work for them. We might be convinced we are deep and shit but we are as shallow as they come, in some race to find the smartest lines that means absoutely nothing to the concrete realities facing people.

While I recognise that "conscious", "abstract" Hip Hop is more thought provoking (or atleast provokes more smart thoughts) than say, "commercial" Hip Hop, if provoking such thoughts leads to no decisive action being taken then its pretty useless.
I therefore charge "conscious" rappers with the same crime I charge "commercial" rappers. By trying so hard to be smart, to be different, they have lost all relevance to people. In the final analysis the choice between Dungeon, crunk, Abstract, or whatever becomes that of mere taste with one having no objective superiority over the other.

So maybe they (the conscious rappers) die out because this avenue of "coolness" is getting too hot for them then they try some other one.

80% on point

Art can influence revolution as much as it can do the opposite. The difference is that the artists themselves are generally never willing to be directly involved in any real revolutionary work. They themselves see the problem but as a typical middle(or above that) cla** are too unwilling to give up their comforts and choose to push liberal ways of being involved because real revolutionary actions mean you could lose everything, money, comfort and your life.

My closest friend once said, "Don't trust the artist, trust their album". lol.  Because these artists turn around and do the opposite.

We as fans often forget that these artists are people and people change all the time. No person stays the same till death, life experiences change us.

[Anna Sasin]

80% on point

Art can influence revolution as much as it can do the opposite. The difference is that the artists themselves are generally never willing to be directly involved in any real revolutionary work. They themselves see the problem but as a typical middle(or above that) cla** are too unwilling to give up their comforts and choose to push liberal ways of being involved because real revolutionary actions mean you could lose everything, money, comfort and your life.

My closest friend once said, "Don't trust the artist, trust their album". lol.  Because these artists turn around and do the opposite.

We as fans often forget that these artists are people and people change all the time. No person stays the same till death, life experiences change us.

True.

So if the artist's role is to point out the problems and the listener merely absorbs it intellectually and is lulled into a complacent sleep...then is the purpose of art ever to incite rebellion/revolution?

[RearrangedReality]

80% on point

Art can influence revolution as much as it can do the opposite. The difference is that the artists themselves are generally never willing to be directly involved in any real revolutionary work. They themselves see the problem but as a typical middle(or above that) cla** are too unwilling to give up their comforts and choose to push liberal ways of being involved because real revolutionary actions mean you could lose everything, money, comfort and your life.

My closest friend once said, "Don't trust the artist, trust their album". lol.  Because these artists turn around and do the opposite.

We as fans often forget that these artists are people and people change all the time. No person stays the same till death, life experiences change us.

True.

So if the artist's role is to point out the problems and the listener merely absorbs it intellectually and is lulled into a complacent sleep...then is the purpose of art ever to incite rebellion/revolution?

Politicians see it that way. that should tell you something.

of course thats not the sole purpose.

[Mrs Jones]

Sosiba your post is so spot on.

Talib is afraid of having to carry the mantle of being 'conscious' and 'socially responsible' because then he would have to be accountable to the people.

He is dodging and weaving so that people don't quite know where he stands on any issue.
When he said he could cosign Slim Thug's negative comments about black women, just because he
wrote 'Brown Skin Lady', proving he was above reproach, I realised he uses his past music and influence as a buffer for valid criticism. He is confused.

And yeah,his flow now is just...annoying.

Like RR said, we tend to forget that, artist are human. I realised at a very early stage (that was when I heard that Brenda is doing drugs) that you must love the music they produce and not the artist as they’re always so quick to switch (this came in handy when R Kelly was accused of rape).

I don’t know, but for me I feel like conscious rap is an inspiration for people to start doing something, to recognise where we’re going wrong and what to do to get on the right path.

LOL! My friend is going to laugh at me when I tell him about this thread, not so long ago he was telling me about how the whole conscious rap movement is a total lie. How these artists are total hypocrites, that they hide behind this ‘intellectual bullshit’ when they do the very same thing they speak against.