In the late 1980s, gangsta rap forefathers N.W.A were the targets of national media, politicians and future Donald Trump supporters for having the temerity to tell law enforcement what it could do with itself. Popping bottles of champagne and removing women’s panties before engaging in an illustrated sexual orgy. These are just facts.ġ982’s Wild Style, which ostensibly remains as an artifactual document of the romanticized “four elements” version of hip-hop, featured pioneer and OG best rapper alive Chief Rocker Busy Bee laying money on his bed well before Instagram flexes were a thing. All other voices in hip-hop are defined by their proximity and relationship to those of marginalized Black men living in the United States. We can’t erase them, but to deny that hip-hop’s blueprint is that of the thoughts of young Black men navigating the world around them is to not have an honest conversation. Also, Brown people and women’s voices have always been part of hip-hop. Obviously, other voices have joined the choir since DJ Kool Herc “birthed” this thing called hip-hop at 1520 Sedgwick Ave. To be clear: “We” means primarily, but not specifically, young Black men. We rap about the plug, but we also rap about working in an electronics store and attending technical school.
We speak of missing the bus, missing homies, missing opportunities. That line from the story alone blew up on Twitter.) We speak in many different ways. “While other rappers brag about sex, drugs and expensive cars, Jimothy raps about his ambition to one day earn enough money to shop at upmarket supermarkets and listening to his mother’s advice,” they wrote, as if discovering a Black unicorn drinking from a lake of gold underneath a project staircase. (Despite a recent feature in The New York Times, which tried to convey tall-eyed surprise at the existence of a London rapper who doesn’t traffic in the tropes of many mainstream rappers. It’s obviously not the only way we speak. This is how we’ve spoken in hip-hop since we’ve been allowed to speak-crass and unfiltered, sexual and horny, direct yet metaphoric.