It's not the complicated life of a child growing up in the crack era and immersed in the dope trade Kendrick explored in his verse on Pusha T's 'Nosetalgia': "Quantum physics could never show you the world I was in/ When I was 10, back when nine ounces had got you 10." Nor is the extended metaphor-rap as commodity, emcee as dope dealer-he explores later in the same verse: "I said 'Daddy, one day I'mma get you right with 36 zips/ 1000 grams of cocaine, then your name will be rich/ Now you can rock it up or sell it soft as leather interior/ Drop some ice cubes in it, Deebo on perimeter'/ He said 'Son, how come you think you be my connect?'/ I said 'Pops, your ass is washed up, with all due respect'/ He said 'Well nigga, then show me how it all makes sense'/ Go figure, motherfucker, every verse is a brick, your son dope, nigga." This is rap tailor made for mainstream, social justice-oriented consumption. It's Kendrick in the bully pulpit decrying political partisanship on 'Hood Politics': "Ain't nothin' new, but a flu of new Demo-Crips and Re-Blood-licans/ Red state versus a blue state, which one you governin'?" It is Kendrick using palatable metaphors like the tale of a homeless beggar who is actually God on 'How Much a Dollar Cost,' which won praise from President Barack Obama. His 2015 "To Pimp a Butterfly" is an accessible and explicit political monologue. Kendrick Lamar as the face of political hip-hop right now is an all too convenient choice for the mainstream media. What is not political about people partying to escape, at least for a moment, their deprivation? What is not political about those crushed under the weight of capitalist democracy fetishizing luxury cars, jewelry, and expensive sneakers? Rap mirrors the explicit politics of America, but more often it echoes the hedonism bubbling under the surface of American life. Mostly because Vox undermines the subtle political statements that almost every rap record makes. Vox's binary-catering approach to hip-hop wouldn't know what to do with this post-uprising renaissance. Since Baltimore erupted in April 2015, the city's rappers-whether they are so-called "street" (Young Moose's 'No SunShine'), "club" (Abdu Ali's 'I'm Alive'), "conscious" (Al Rogers Jr.'s 'Honey'), or "underground" (JPEGMAFIA's "Black Ben Carson")-have consistently responded to the uprising in their music (see this week's cover story "F The City Up" for more on Ali, JPEGMAFIA and others). These imagined subgenres are a convenient categorization, an easy way to differentiate the messages of Mos Def and Gucci Mane, two rappers that are not always in opposition.
The critique operates under the assumption that rappers exist in silos: conscious and political or materialistic and hedonistic. The website's argument relies on an imaginary binary: gangster/party rap juxtaposed against conscious/political rap. However, that is precisely why its assertion that mainstream hip-hop pivoted back to politics in 2015 is so toxic: Many people take their cues from Vox, which constructs a digestible narrative for outsiders, one with a positive and even "social justice" spin and as such, allows its readers to feel "down" while still feeling superior to the majority of hip-hop which Vox deems unworthy of being labeled political. Vox built its journalistic bona fides on politics and policy analysis, making it the last place a person seriously interested in rap criticism would turn. By the video's end, Kendrick Lamar is praised as the political conscience of the current crop of rappers.
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It wasn't until 2015, according to Vox, that hip-hop returned to its bully pulpit, yanked into the political sphere by a series of controversial killings by police and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement. channeled the frustrations of 1990s inner city youth, Lauryn Hill championed feminism, and then rap music took a detour to the club, pushing political and conscious rap underground. Here's Why," explanatory news site Vox sought to explain what it characterized as the reemergence of politically charged rap in 2015. In three minutes and a superficial analysis of hip-hop's on and off again relationship with political commentary we learn this: Tupac, Nas, and Notorious B.I.G.
In a video released in late January, "Hip-Hop is Political Again.