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| Jay-Z at Hackney Weekend: but does hip-hop degrade or enhance? | Jay-Z at Hackney Weekend: but does hip-hop degrade or enhance? |
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| "Success never smelled so sweet, I stink of success." The lines by rapper and music mogul Jay-Z, who topped the bill at the BBC's Hackney Weekend festival on Saturday, are no vainglorious boast. From dealing crack on a Brooklyn housing project to an estimated personal worth of $450m (£288m), the rapper embodies the modern rags-to-riches tale. His stratospheric success reflects the evolution of a genre born on the impoverished streets of New York, which now dominates the global music charts and cultural consciousness – a multiplatinum-plated success story at risk, critics argue, of drowning in its own excess. | "Success never smelled so sweet, I stink of success." The lines by rapper and music mogul Jay-Z, who topped the bill at the BBC's Hackney Weekend festival on Saturday, are no vainglorious boast. From dealing crack on a Brooklyn housing project to an estimated personal worth of $450m (£288m), the rapper embodies the modern rags-to-riches tale. His stratospheric success reflects the evolution of a genre born on the impoverished streets of New York, which now dominates the global music charts and cultural consciousness – a multiplatinum-plated success story at risk, critics argue, of drowning in its own excess. |
| Even as the 50,000-strong crowd recovers from seeing a lineup that throbbed with talent from both sides of the Atlantic, behind the scenes a heavyweight group of hip-hop artists, intellectuals and critics ask: does rap enhance or degrade society? | |
| Billed as the "first ever global debate on hip-hop", speakers from rapper KRS-One to Victorian literature expert and hip-hop fan John Sutherland, David Cameron's youth adviser Shaun Bailey to hip-hop convert Jesse Jackson – will gather at the Barbican tomorrow on Tuesday for a debate organised by Intelligence Squared and bankrolled by Google, bringing in voices from around the world via the company's "hangout" technology. They will ask whether hip-hop is "the authentic voice of the oppressed that turns anger into poetry and political action", or a "glorification of all that holds back oppressed minorities and hinders them from mainstream assimilation"? | Billed as the "first ever global debate on hip-hop", speakers from rapper KRS-One to Victorian literature expert and hip-hop fan John Sutherland, David Cameron's youth adviser Shaun Bailey to hip-hop convert Jesse Jackson – will gather at the Barbican tomorrow on Tuesday for a debate organised by Intelligence Squared and bankrolled by Google, bringing in voices from around the world via the company's "hangout" technology. They will ask whether hip-hop is "the authentic voice of the oppressed that turns anger into poetry and political action", or a "glorification of all that holds back oppressed minorities and hinders them from mainstream assimilation"? |
| The Hackney Weekend's lineup proved that hip-hop artists have little difficulty finding their mainstream flow. On Saturday night, Nicki Minaj spat her brand of hip-hop pop before Jay-Z took to the stage, while on Sunday Britain's Plan B - back in the arms of his first love, hip-hop, having left the crooning and smart suits of his Strickland Banks era behind him - , Professor Green and Tinie Tempah will warm the stage by the Olympic Park for headliner Rihanna. "This is hip-hop's moment," said 1Xtra DJ and hip-hop artist Charlie Sloth. "For the BBC to acknowledge that hip-hip is the dominant force in modern culture is huge." | |
| Last week, Ben Cooper, head of Radio 1, said of the Hackney Weekend: "We're going into an area that I don't think any commercial operator would have gone into after the unrest of last year. That is the job of the BBC." Sloth added that local boys Labrinth – born and raised with nine siblings in Hackney – and Tottenham rapper Wretch 32 playing alongside stars like Jay-Z would send a positive message to the crowd, many of them residents from one of London's poorest boroughs, who were given priority in the ballot for free tickets. "Seeing these artists up there, coming from the same place as they come from – it gives them hope, it shows what they can achieve." | Last week, Ben Cooper, head of Radio 1, said of the Hackney Weekend: "We're going into an area that I don't think any commercial operator would have gone into after the unrest of last year. That is the job of the BBC." Sloth added that local boys Labrinth – born and raised with nine siblings in Hackney – and Tottenham rapper Wretch 32 playing alongside stars like Jay-Z would send a positive message to the crowd, many of them residents from one of London's poorest boroughs, who were given priority in the ballot for free tickets. "Seeing these artists up there, coming from the same place as they come from – it gives them hope, it shows what they can achieve." |
| But for former youth worker-turned-government youth adviser Shaun Bailey, the gangster lifestyle vaunted by some rappers creates a lack of respect for the black community. "You've got a few people who do live a fug-life, a gangster life, and everybody else with their faces pressed up against the glass. They get to see it all, they get to hear it all but they don't have to suffer any of the consequences, any of the danger," he said, in a video trailing the debate. "It says to our young people, someone messes with you – blow their head off, literally. And you need to ask yourself: are we building massive hip-hop revenues on the backs of our young dead people?" | But for former youth worker-turned-government youth adviser Shaun Bailey, the gangster lifestyle vaunted by some rappers creates a lack of respect for the black community. "You've got a few people who do live a fug-life, a gangster life, and everybody else with their faces pressed up against the glass. They get to see it all, they get to hear it all but they don't have to suffer any of the consequences, any of the danger," he said, in a video trailing the debate. "It says to our young people, someone messes with you – blow their head off, literally. And you need to ask yourself: are we building massive hip-hop revenues on the backs of our young dead people?" |
| It is an argument echoed by Jason Whitlock, columnist for Fox Sports, who has declared categorically ahead of the event that "hip-hop culture is dead". Hijacked by "prison culture" it now exists only to celebrate "drug dealing, killing, disrespect, disrespect of women, sexism", he argues. | It is an argument echoed by Jason Whitlock, columnist for Fox Sports, who has declared categorically ahead of the event that "hip-hop culture is dead". Hijacked by "prison culture" it now exists only to celebrate "drug dealing, killing, disrespect, disrespect of women, sexism", he argues. |
| While blatant examples abound misogyny abound in hip-hop – a recent line from Jay-Z and Kayne West's That's My Bitch boasts "I paid for them titties, get your own" – there is space within the genre to challenge the sexism, according to dream hampton, co-author of Jay-Z's bestselling book Decoded. "Is mainstream hip-hop sexist? Absolutely," she said, in a phone interview from the US. | While blatant examples abound misogyny abound in hip-hop – a recent line from Jay-Z and Kayne West's That's My Bitch boasts "I paid for them titties, get your own" – there is space within the genre to challenge the sexism, according to dream hampton, co-author of Jay-Z's bestselling book Decoded. "Is mainstream hip-hop sexist? Absolutely," she said, in a phone interview from the US. |
| "But that is not the whole story – there are as many bitches and hos in the Bible as in hip-hop, but you can't have that conversation with a pastor. In hip-hop patriarchy can be discussed, confronted and laid bare, where others hide behind civil discourse and censure." | "But that is not the whole story – there are as many bitches and hos in the Bible as in hip-hop, but you can't have that conversation with a pastor. In hip-hop patriarchy can be discussed, confronted and laid bare, where others hide behind civil discourse and censure." |
| Others are likely to point out that hip-hop (the only genre to put such "terrific premium on linguistic inventiveness", according to Sutherland) now covers such a vast cultural and geographical space that it is impossible to come down on either side of the argument. Speaking from Egypt, where he is at the vanguard of a small army of artists hoping to use rap's energy to document the Arab spring, rapper Deeb said hip-hop remained the genre of the underprivileged and oppressed and the act of posting a hip-hop track on YouTube was still "a social and political" act. "If there is a soundtrack to the Arab spring, I think hip-hop will have a few tracks on the CD," he said. | Others are likely to point out that hip-hop (the only genre to put such "terrific premium on linguistic inventiveness", according to Sutherland) now covers such a vast cultural and geographical space that it is impossible to come down on either side of the argument. Speaking from Egypt, where he is at the vanguard of a small army of artists hoping to use rap's energy to document the Arab spring, rapper Deeb said hip-hop remained the genre of the underprivileged and oppressed and the act of posting a hip-hop track on YouTube was still "a social and political" act. "If there is a soundtrack to the Arab spring, I think hip-hop will have a few tracks on the CD," he said. |
| But it's the turbo-charged bling of hip-hop – its obsession with private jets, designer labels and excess so at odds with the reality experienced by the majority of its fans – which leaves artists like 50 Cent and Jay-Z mere "salesmen of commodity capitalism", according Tricia Rose, professor of Africana studies at Brown University and author of The Hip Hop Wars. "It's promoting a fiction, a fallacy of success that buys into a racist and corrupt system, where freedom and justice rarely feature," she said. | But it's the turbo-charged bling of hip-hop – its obsession with private jets, designer labels and excess so at odds with the reality experienced by the majority of its fans – which leaves artists like 50 Cent and Jay-Z mere "salesmen of commodity capitalism", according Tricia Rose, professor of Africana studies at Brown University and author of The Hip Hop Wars. "It's promoting a fiction, a fallacy of success that buys into a racist and corrupt system, where freedom and justice rarely feature," she said. |
| Yet there was a danger of the debate becoming polarised, and useful debate being lost in the noise, she added. "You're either a player or a hater," she said. "Blind attacks on hip-hop are used to justify a broad set of attacks on poor minority communities, but on the other hand few people in that world want to be critical of the negative influence of commercial hip-hop. The conversation is muted by that player/hater dialectic." | Yet there was a danger of the debate becoming polarised, and useful debate being lost in the noise, she added. "You're either a player or a hater," she said. "Blind attacks on hip-hop are used to justify a broad set of attacks on poor minority communities, but on the other hand few people in that world want to be critical of the negative influence of commercial hip-hop. The conversation is muted by that player/hater dialectic." |
| Veteran hip-hop DJ Trevor Nelson, charged with broadcasting the highlights of the Hackney Weekend to those who failed to get a ticket, was asked if he thought hip-hop enriched or degraded society. The Hackney-born Radio 1 DJ said: "If we're going to be honest it does both – the beauty of hip-hop is that if you want to party, you can. If you want to preach, you can. There's no hip-hop committee. It's a free voice that goes straight to the point." | Veteran hip-hop DJ Trevor Nelson, charged with broadcasting the highlights of the Hackney Weekend to those who failed to get a ticket, was asked if he thought hip-hop enriched or degraded society. The Hackney-born Radio 1 DJ said: "If we're going to be honest it does both – the beauty of hip-hop is that if you want to party, you can. If you want to preach, you can. There's no hip-hop committee. It's a free voice that goes straight to the point." |
| Despite the brashness and the bombast, the boasting and the bling, hip-hop remains a medium of expression for those with no voice in society, insisted 1 Xtra's Sloth. While Saturday's audience screamed to Jay-Z lyrics like "What's 50 grand to a muthafucka like me?", on Sunday they will hear Plan B's searing critique of post-riots Britain Ill Manors, with lines like: "There's no such thing as broken Britain/We're just bloody broke in Britain/What needs fixing is the system/not shop windows down in Brixton." | Despite the brashness and the bombast, the boasting and the bling, hip-hop remains a medium of expression for those with no voice in society, insisted 1 Xtra's Sloth. While Saturday's audience screamed to Jay-Z lyrics like "What's 50 grand to a muthafucka like me?", on Sunday they will hear Plan B's searing critique of post-riots Britain Ill Manors, with lines like: "There's no such thing as broken Britain/We're just bloody broke in Britain/What needs fixing is the system/not shop windows down in Brixton." |
| Whatever the debate concludes, for Sloth hip-hop is still the "soundtrack to the struggle" and one we should get used to hearing. "People thought the popularity of hip-hop was a phase," he said. "But it's more than that: it's a lifestyle – and it's here to stay." | Whatever the debate concludes, for Sloth hip-hop is still the "soundtrack to the struggle" and one we should get used to hearing. "People thought the popularity of hip-hop was a phase," he said. "But it's more than that: it's a lifestyle – and it's here to stay." |