What Hip Hop Has to Learn From Heavy Metal in Order to Survive!

“Rap music sucks nowadays,” reads the obituary column of a once thriving industry gone wrong. What happened to the Hip Hop Movement? Mainstream everything has become “a-for-dummies-guidebook” in marketing complete garbage as talent. It’s like Maurizio Cattelan’s gold toilet that sits in the Guggenheim Museum. Look at what we place value in after it has been used. Pretty women with slim waists and voluptuous bottoms, posing with a sanctified drug dealer turned artist in every music video is the contemporary watermelon and fried chicken new age urban stereotype for sure! Rap music as popular music is forever finding ways to resurrect Hattie McDaniel ‘s role of servicing a caste system of entertainment’s elite. The quality of music? Frankly, my dear,I don’t give a damn!

Nobody cares about the diminishing quality of rap music because the money is right. Music sales are up because it is more convenient to buy music. Can you imagine the effort it took in the 1960’s to buy a Beatles’ album? Well to begin, you had to take a shower, fill the car up with gas, and drive twenty-minutes down the road to the local record store. Today, you can buy that same Beatles’ album while sitting on the toilet, while thumbing through your favorite artists on your iPhone.

In a shaman’s world, music is born and grows up alongside our childhood dreams. Once a new music form reaches its eighteenth birthday, the age of maturity, it changes. This can be seen in the history of Rock n’ Roll, as it’s classic period is dated from 1955 to 1973. The same can be said for Hip Hop’s memorable timeline of 1979 to 1997. After a new musical genre has matured, it is then absorbed into the world of commercialization. No longer resisting the pressure of “selling out” is a sign that the concluding years of a teenager’s world has finally arrived. “Hip Hop is Dead,” says Nas, after we have all grown up.

How can Hip Hop resurrect itself? First, we must remember that Hip Hop was born out of a love affair between Rock n’ Roll and Disco, which means that she is the granddaughter of the Blues.  Since Hip Hop sought to be the best daddy’s little girl that money could buy, a lot of her actions echoed Rock n’ Roll’s footsteps. For example, as a child Rock n’ Roll used to have guys doo-wopping on the corner. Hip Hop mimicked her father’s experience by beatboxing during city block cyphers -like father, like daughter.

After witnessing the childhood years of the Art of Noise, Hip Hop became a teenager of consciousness and hosted an array of MCs who were ready, willing, and able to spit on a world of injustices with a single noun. When Hip Hop entered college at the onset of the Wu Tang Clan Era, she had a body to die for, as in Ready to Die! Unfortunately, tragedy was not too far away. Once Hip-Hop put down her Supreme Mathematics and picked up an All About the Benjamins’ mentality, the end was in sight! Can you imagine Reggae trying to establish a place for itself beyond Rastafari? Without the god Supreme in her life, Hip Hop was getting pimped by some of the world’s top executives, who kept her stoned with an infatuation for the streets. Damn! Is Reverend Calvin Butts’ wet dream finally prepared to take a journey in the afterlife?

Perhaps Hip Hop should get some advice from her older brother Heavy Metal. Now before ya’ll start screaming like the senior citizens you are, so quick to have an erection that lasts as long as sleeping with someone who has mental issues before you knew it, let’s take a good look at  the relationship Hip Hop has with her older brother Heavy Metal.

Heavy Metal is Hip Hop’s half-brother, as they are both heirs of their father Rock n’ Roll. As mentioned before, Hip Hop was born out of Rock n’ Roll’s affair with Disco. Prior to this, Rock n’ Roll was married to Psychedelic and their union produced a son named Heavy Metal.

Although Hip Hop grew up in a different environment than Heavy Metal, you can still see the strong genetic ties, not only in physical appearance, but the aggression found in the personality of lyrical content and music. When I look at Heavy Metal and Hip Hop standing next to each other, the only differences I see is in Heavy Metal’s slightly lighter complexion. Take a look for yourself!

It’s official! Heavy Metal and Hip Hop are siblings! Remember DNA doesn’t lie! Just imagine back in the mid-70s Judas Priest penned a verse that stated; “I reached the dressing table, kicked away the door. I gripped the cold black metal, a loaded .44.” Later, in 1997 we heard  The Notorious B.I.G., pbuh, brandishing the hook, “Kick in the door, waving the four-four. All you heard was Poppa don’t hit me no more.” That’s it! It’s official! Heavy Metal and Hip Hop are siblings!

This dna test is definitely a game-changer for a family reunion of b-boys and metalheads at Hip Hop’s last supper. If we took the costumes and music away for just one moment, you would think that the verses compared in the chart above, were vocalists vibing on the same song.

This is definitely good news for Hip Hop! Traditionally, older siblings can give us insights into certain issues we may be facing in life. Recently, Heavy Metal got a chance to share some advice with his sister Hip Hop that will help her age gracefully. Luckily, I got a chance to listen to their conversation and take notes on what was said.

Staying True To Your Roots is the Key To Longevity

 An amazing fact about the life of Heavy Metal can be found in its legacy. Although Hip Hop boasts about being the music of the streets, it ran after commercial success. Heavy Metal, on the other hand, never emerged from the underground and enjoys a more favorable life than Hip Hop. An example of this can be seen in the career spans of Heavy Metal bands versus Hip Hop acts.

The Top Heavy Metal bands of the 1970’s are still game-changers in the genre of Heavy Metal today. Can you imagine what Hip Hop music would be like if acts like Public Enemy were still accepted for their creative potential in the urban community? Surely, “the music of the streets” would be so much richer as an art form and a culture.

Hip Hop has to learn that the world is not all about her. She can even stop genocide in the poor communities that she claims to represent by just putting some emotional value in the genre of music you buy. i mean you really have to be a sucka to buy into the idea of a beautiful song going in and out of style. What are you keeping up with really. Yes, music is always renewing itself.

Survival is the Highest Law and All You Have is Each Other

There has always been an element of battling” in Hip Hop. She is a feisty chick in many ways! Deejay battles, MCs battling, coming to the park and battling as poppers and breakers, is all a part of her attitude. In some ways Hip Hop has survived its struggle through the art of struggling, battling. However, when we begin to destroy and kill the artist, the destroy the art. it’s very simple. Everyone has to make a living, not a death. Unless you get possessed by the opposite side of the will to survive and spit of your grave spiritually. Now you killed this woman’s child and still expect to get terms of endearment by the moms. Hugs of torture is the only form of affection that your children will hold.

Allow Room For Growth

Our view on life says something about the caliber of our personality. Know what is art and what is entertainment. Hip Hop used to always talk about the problems of racism and then we find out that she is more prejudice than anyone else. Race is a narcissistic complexion that colonialist created for you for their benefit. Trying to push everybody out the ring to control something that you own is what put you in the position you are in  today. And if you can’t understand that such a way of life, though appearing profitable is a mental illness, then there is nothing more for me to say.

Don’t be afraid to create a moral environment! You want to talk about growth and development? Let’s begin with morality. Morality is as simple as cleaning up the neighborhood because you know that people need to be in a safe environment in order to purchase your product. That’s morality! That’s all it is! Now you can be whatever animal you want to be holding a wad of money and you are still not considered wealthy because you don’t know how to create morality.

Morality separates us from the animals, and that’s real. If you really know how to move the crowd then you know the art of morality. Music is a product. It can be bought and sold. It’s very simple. Morality is as simple as cleaning up the neighborhood because you know that people need to feel safe buying your product.

 

Black Sabbath – Lord of This World (1971)

Jay-Z – Politics As Usual (1996)

Your world was made for you by someone above But you choose evil ways instead of love. You made me master of the world where you exist The soul I took from you was not even missed, yeah….. You think you’re innocent you’ve nothing to fear You don’t know me, you say, but isn’t it clear? You turn to me in all your worldly greed and pride But will you turn to me when it’s your turn to die, yeah?

Skating through your town putting it down y’all relating. No waiting I’ll make your block infrared hot I’m like Satan. Y’all feel a nigga’s struggle, y’all think a nigga love to Hustle behind the wheel, trying to escape my trouble. Kids stop they greeting me, I’m talking sweet to keys. Cursing the very God, that bought this wreath to be. My life is, based on sacrifices, jewels like ices. And fools that think I slip, you fuck around. You get your guys hit, they built me to be filthy On some I-do-or-die shit, for real

(*I would like to thank Heavy Metal historian, Brian Kappes, for helping me in my research on the subject.)

Warlock Asylum