You rock!

theroot.com- Rock is Black Music, Too

Great article that I came across this morning. What Rob Fields is basically saying is in previous generations Black musicians were they innovative ones. Pushing the envelope musically and creating music genred such as Rock and Roll, Jazz and the Blues which our Caucasian counter-parts used to influence their own sound. Fields complains that today's hip hop generation has become unoriginal and uninspiring and that it is now the musicians of other races that are changing the game.

I couldn't agree more with this article especially being that I grew up in a time when Hip Hop was still fresh and new. Sadly that innovation has given way to the rise of a slew of sub-par MC carbon copies desperately trying to re-create the creative flames of the likes of Notorious BIG, Big Daddy Kane, NWA and A Tribe Called Quest. Hip Hop artists of today are more concerned with being the next (insert rapper here) instead of being the 1st them. This is painfully evident when listening to mainstream urban radio. My co-worker is always asking me. "who sings this song?" She can't tell the difference between one artist and another. This didn't happen 20 years ago. When an Eric B and Rahkim song came on you KNEW it was Eric B and Rahkim.

All is not lost though, there are plenty of MC's with bonafide talent waiting for a brave soul in the music industry to break out of the "gangsta-pimp-ho triumvirate" and take a chance on something original. It takes a little work to find these artist as their songs aren't being played on the radio or in the clubs. They are being pumped from the headphones of that kid on the train with the extra large bookbag or that computer science major that everyone thinks acts "too white" because his jeans fit, he rarely uses slang and never owned a pair of Air Jordans.

Hip Hop isn't dead people, but its got a mean case of swine flu.