Hip-hop culture vs. Urban Ghetto (by Assad Conley)

Rising Above the Mentality: Hip-hop culture vs. Urban Ghetto Culture

A fresh, clean pair of Air Jordans. Your favorite Sean John jeans. A white tee shirt covered by a throwback jersey. All topped of with a fitted hat and a silver chain.

The same person wearing these clothes, is suddenly heard yelling:
"Ay dawg! Whaz duh science on hittin' up da club tonight? Ya know I be lookin' fo' a lil-sum-sum so a ni**a kin be gettin' whud he be needin'!!"

Just a regular guy, on a regular day, in a regular hood. This everyday image has been mis-interpreted as the stereotype of what hip-hop is. And what is even sadder than this guy's poor speech, is the fact that his way of dressing, his way of talking, walking, his mannerisms, are being packaged and sold to today's youth as being "hip-hop."

I write on these topics not because I think I am a know it all, but because I have seen these things first hand, and I want to share what I have seen.

What a lot of people don't realize (especially young people today), is that there is something called an Urban Ghetto Culture. The word culture can be explained as a collection of habits shared (practiced) by a group of people. Hip-hop, in its own right, is a culture. What happens in the "'hoods" and in the projects, is in its own right, a culture. But becuase hip-hop comes from the projects and the 'hoods, the two cultures are often confused and intertwined (generally under the name of hip-hop).

First, you have to take a look at what goes on in the projects. Sex at a young age, selling drugs on the corners, waiting on welfare checks on the 1st and 15th of the month, all someone needs to know can be learned right there on the street, speaking with proper grammar is not needed, babies are aborted and abandoned, the only clothes someone needs are the over-sized and over-priced threads you can find in any Chinatown sweatshop. The only thing that matters is your personal survival. Forget everyone else. Watch your own back, take care of yourself. If you get a girl pregnant by fooling around, it's her fault and her baby. Drinking 40's, smoking blunts, partying with ho's, pimps and pimping (I HAVE met REAL pimps might I mind you... and their prostitutes).

That's truly a short list of what goes on in the 'hood. You just need to witness it to learn everything that is going on.

Those things that go on in the 'hood, THOSE are the things hip-hop is trying to get rid of! Hip-hop is meant to educate on these negative aspects of ghetto life. Hip-hop is trying to RISE ABOVE it all!! I don't know how else to put it, it is so simple (therefore I must go back to urban ghetto culture).

"But hip-hop has evolved, it's different now, this is what it is now..." People do tend to write about what they know about (especially when it comes to poets). Rappers are really nothing much more than street poets. So they write about the streets. But there are two paths that can be taken. The first and the easiest, is to write in a way that GLORIFIES what they see everyday in the streets. The second and much harder path is the one that speaks of getting an education to raise your status (socially and economically) and denounces the ways of the ghetto.

At this point I really don't know how to put it. Maybe during my trip to New York this summer, I can sum it up better. But to be to the point on this subject:
What you see in mainstream "hip-hop" music, the clothing, the attitudes, the lifestyles, the speech, is part of the urban ghetto culture. It is what the hip-hop culture (conscious hip-hop) speaks against. It truly is ignorance being sold to today's youth.

Only a fool follows a fool.
Assad "Invent" Conley
FMC
GPC