Seeds and Legacies: Tapping the Potential in Hip-Hop

Abstract

Many would question the subtitle of this article-“Tapping the Potential in Hip-Hop”— specifically the notion that there is indeed any potential to tap in Hip-Hop. Those people would list ad nauseam the numerous instances of violence, sexism, and misogyny as well as the glorification of drug use and drug sales described in contemporary rap music. They would list certain rappers who have been arrested for these acts and the recent deaths of young Black male rappers as reason enough to surmise that there is indeed no potential to tap in Hip-Hop. Those same people would probably tell us that this entire generation of young people is a lost cause because of reasons ranging from apathy to selfishness. The Generation X-and more recently Generation O-has been cast aside as the do-nothing generation, a generation of wasted potential. These people probably do not have a clue that Hip-Hop is not rap, while rap is definitely a part of Hip-Hop. They probably do not know that rap is the music and Hip-Hop is the culture.

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