Instead of preaching or putting you to sleep with nostalgia, I'm going to invoke the Five Elements in the name of Hip Hop to dispel the demons of irreverence clouding the vision of the under 30. Here are the five elements of hip hop:
1. DJing/Producing: DJs started and led hip hop from the start. They moved the crowd, told people when it was time to dance, chill, or slow drag (couple up and grind out sexual frustration, an art seemingly lost on younger generations). DJ's determined whether people get bucked up and want to fight or chant together and want to party. Back in the 80s and early 90s, people went to parties based upon what DJ was spinning. It was Eric B and Rakim; DJ Jazzy Jeff and Fresh Prince. The DJ was king because the act of producing music or playing music at a party requires a level of preparation and precision at being present to the moment that embodies the best of Hip Hop. Having DJ friends growing up (shout out RSelf et al.), I came to appreciate the art early on. But this is a recent video showing the mesmerizing ability of one of the best who ever did it: DJ Jazzy Jeff...
...nuff said.
2. MCing/Rapping: Originally, the rapper was a hype man. He would get on the mic and chant out dances or phrases to get the crowd buck. Somewhere along the way, the big personalities and dramatic flair of rappers became the dominant representation of Hip Hop. But the resulting imbalance, billing the big-mouth above the crowd controller has had some devastating impacts. As is the case when style surpasses substance, Hip Hop has become synonymous with rap the way politics has become synonymous with democracy and in both, big money controls what is said and heard.
3. B-Boying/Breakdancing: Certainly never only for boys, this is the magical physical expression of hip hop in the human body. B-boys and B-girls transform the body into a robotic machine or a formless energy wave, a ghostly gliding moonwalker or a gymnastic, spider-like creature of infinite creativity, all to a beat. B-boying is Hip Hop's most challenging and entrancing element. It's also universal as you can see below that the entire world is involved in taking b-boying to new, mind blowing levels.
4. Grafitti Art/Tagging: Hip Hop's most universal expression, you can find the transfiguration of words into images; the explosion of rhetorical concepts and metaphors into geometric patterns and boundlessly layered images; the disruption and transformation of drab urban edifice into flowing landscapes of human imagination blooming with color and booming with movement; you can find graffiti art in every single corner of every city on the planet earth. From Icelandto Melbourne
From Japan
To Brazil
But the 5th element is the core of all four elements. Without the fifth element, all these sensually stunning, viscerally moving, gutturally titillating expressions of hip hop have no value; only spectacle. Without the fifth element, beats become simply a series of deafening booms and piercing baps, patterned and irreparably flawed in their mechanical droning. Without the fifth element rappers spit drivel as minstrels and caricatures, perpetrating the fraud of race tropes and gendered violence to children looking to break the social confines of their own minds.
The fifth element is the key that unlocks the power of hip hop culture. The fifth element is the stream of consciousness that separates the commodified shadow pop of mainstream gangster/pimp rap from hip hop. The fifth element is the missing ingredient.
5. Education/Knowledge: The organization of the four cultural expressions into the culture of hip hop happened because of the impulse to use culture to educate, inform, inspire, and uplift the world. This is not hopeful philosophy. This is the concrete foundation and historical core of hip hop.
Formed in the Bronx, New York during a period of severe cuts to social programs that left youth with little constructive activities to get into, hip hop emerged in response to the violence of gang culture that was threatening the lives of children and the fabric of the community. Early hip hop, was a safe place to compete and battle, an uplifting energy to party with. The 5th element was alive even in the 90s, after gangster rap began to dominate, rappers like NWA, Ice Cube, Biggie, and Tupac always gave both sides of gangster life: the dangerous thrills and the destructive consequence. And there was still Tribe and De La Soul, Pharcyde and Souls of Mischief, Public Enemy and Wutang dropping jazz, joy, power and knowledge. We still had a choice.
What does all this have to do with turing 40? Well, many believe that hip hop turned 40 years old on August 11th 2013, 40 years to the day DJ Kool Herc worked his technique of using two turntables to perpetually spin the break beats of the hottest records of the day. The vapid, uninspiring, and socially destructive content of much radio rap is definitely a sad display of regress. But the images and videos above, and the existence of new storytellers like Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and conscious rappers like Dee-1...
... these things show that at just over 40 years old, Hip Hop is 40 and still fly... just like your author is about to be. And if I can pull that 5th element squarely into my life and hip hop can send energy to that 5th element bubbling up to disrupt the commodification of Hip Hop culture, then
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