It's Bigger Than Hip Hop: The Rise of the Post-Hip-Hop Generation

Asante (b. 1982) decries the negativity of much of mainstream hip-hop. Though people his age “were born into the hip-hop generation, they feel misrepresented by it and . . . see the dangers and limitations of being collectively identified by a genre of music they don’t even own.” Their “lack of ownership . . . has allowed corporate forces to overrun hip-hop with a level of misogyny and black-on-black violence” that has led “some young folks to disown the label ‘hip-hop generation.’” A similar argument could be made about nearly every underground movement that achieves pop-music supremacy, but Asante feels mainstream marketing of hip-hop has robbed his generation of a valuable voice for enunciating social and political criticism and made the music “a conservative instrument, promoting nothing new or remotely challenging to mainstream cultural ideology.” He declares that “post-hip-hop,” rather than marking the death of rap, represents a shift to a more inclusive movement incorporating culturally significant subject matter. Weighty, probably vital reading for keeping up with youth culture and pop music. --Mike Tribby