Hip-hop journalism falls into a subset of alternative journalism (or "alt-journalism), insofar as most documentary observation presupposes objectivity. Hip-hop journalism and other brands of alt-journalism (gonzo, queer, womanist, activist et al) are necessarily subjective. Alt-journalism addresses a subject matter with inherent worldview in place, running empirical fact, apocryphal notions, cultural anthropology and conventional ideas through that civ in order to measure validity in context, ultimately reporting findings in a manner the mainstream might find jarring and disconcerting.
Writers who principally write stories about rap music, rappers and popular music culture have come to call themselves "hip-hop journalists". Most of these writers are music writers or culture critics at best, bereft of any toolset to be accurately called a hip-hop journalist. What does that toolset look like? Well, to put it bluntly, if you have to ask, then you can't be told. Put another way: "Dems that tell don't know and dem that know don't tell". Colloquialisms aside (with a nod to filmmaker and screenwriter Spike Lee), stake-holding is the principal prerequisite. No amount of anthropology, pathos by proximity or membership by co-signature gives you the hip-hop perspective.
Here's why.
The hip-hop journalist must necessarily be a stakeholder: that is, their history, their lives and their legacy must somehow be impacted by the accurate documentation of hip-hop culture and the world as seen from that vantage point. What is hip-hop culture? Hip-hop culture is the compilation of the music, dance, art and words of a generation of Black, Afro-Cuban and Latino Americans that arose as a response and remedy to post-Jimmy Carter America's programs to further marginalize the poor and isolate minorities. At its best, hip-hop journalism chronicles the death of the American dream for the hip-hop generation—post-civil rights Black and Latinos between the ages of 25 and 50. Hip-hop journalism is cynical, critical and analytical. All things considered, leaving nothing to be assumed. Hip-hop journalism has style, rhythm and attitude, like blues writing (see Leroi Jones, Richard Wright, Sonia Sanchez, Zora Neale Hurston and James Baldwin) gonzo—or beat writing (see Hunter Thompson, Charles Bukoski or Henry Miller), or jazz prose (Ralph Ellison or Toni Morrison) before it. Hip-hop journalism tells the American story—warts and all--through the eyes of the last stakeholders. It occasionally dabbles in pop music (Greg Tate) and film (Gary Dauphin, Elvis Mitchell) criticism.
(The music, at best, acts as thermometer that gauges the successes and failures of the (black American) American Dream. Lately, its hardest, most sensational stories have been crystallized into a formula that sates the consumer base hungry for tales of the New Urban Mandingo. Music critics and culture writers can know and love rap music, breakdance and regurgitate the lingo but have no stake in whether hip-hop culture evolves, devolves or disappears altogether. Hip-hop journalists do.)
Hip-hop journalism covers all things academic, political, religious, social, sexual or cultural. It has a crossover rhythm that can catch a beat on any page, in any medium.
It is often brazen, audacious: ferocious. Fearless and assertive without apology.
It battles.
It challenges, flouts convention asking hard, impolite questions.
It don't take your word for it (you need more people).
It curses sometimes, and is often profane.
It hops on the goodfoot, flies like an eagle, cuts so fresh and steps into another world.
Beholden to the laws of all good journalism, it's honest, reflective and forthright: word, after all, is bond.
It will not explain what you don't understand. It will NOT explain what YOU don't UNDERSTAND. IT will NOT EXPLAIN what you don't understand.
Hip-hop journalism. Is Not. Your Negro Tour Guide to the Black Experience. Not now. Not ever.
It is academia. It is scholarship. It's spirited debate.
Lots of weed-carrying: very few owners.
Hip-hop journalism: It's the Joint.
Can you dig it? |
