Lessons from Hip Hop

The times, they are a-changing.

The words Bob Dylan sang years ago are still in motion, though in a very different form. Instead of a scratchy voice, a harmonica, and a lone guitar it is being brought by the beats of DJs and the rhymes and raps of numerous MCs. It seemed to me that I lived in a time where social awareness and change could not come through music. This was until I attended my first underground hip hop show. The experience was eye opening for me. It blew me away and it is clear to me that the greatest possibility of social activism happening through music will come from somewhere in underground hip hop.

The whole event was fairly spontaneous. It was Sunday night and my friend Tyrell and I had just returned from dinner at Yusoko’s—a little hole-in-the-wall Teriyaki spot on the backside of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle—when a group of friends informed me that they had a spare ticket to a show. I decreed my books closed for the night and decided to go. It wasn’t until we were half way to the venue that I discovered I was going to a hip-hop show. My appearance and attire was less than appropriate for such an event. My shaggy beard, flannel shirt, worn shirts, wool socks and Birkenstock sandals made me look like I had bought tickets to the Phish reunion tour by mistake. I did have a ticket for three acts: The Sweatshop Union, Greyskull, and The Swollen Members—it took me quite some time to figure out exactly what their name was referring to. Three groups I had never heard of, so I assumed they were just like all the other hip hop I had heard before.

I grew up in Salem, Oregon, before I moved to Seattle to go to college. The capitol of Oregon is not a premiere city for a diverse music experience, so the only hip-hop I had ever heard was what I got from Top 40 radio and MTV. When I try to think of it, all I can see are wads of money, tricked out cars, and scantily clad women dancing at BBQ’s. I can only hear rappers telling me to get rich, to get laid, to get high. Nothing exactly uplifting. It seemed only natural to me that this show would be no different. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

We parked the car in front of an old church on Capitol Hill, a few blocks from the venue. If Seattle were a high school, Capitol Hill would be the artsy rebel kid who always wore a scarf. It contains the hip trendy bars and a few smaller venues like Nuemo’s where the show was to take place that night. I stood in a veil of nicotine and rain—the kind of Northwest rain that floats like dust and puts a fuzzy film over everything beyond ten yards. The show-goers lined up from the door along the tour bus and toward the end of a row of promotional Jeeps that spewed music against the brick building. Slowly we marched into the dimly lit room. It had a small stage at the front and a balcony bar up to the right. The stage had pillars of speakers and a line of tables equipped with numerous turntables and headphones.

I stood like it was my first day of elementary school with my hands in my pockets trying to protect myself from the foreign environment. A man that looked old enough to be my father came on stage and announced the first act: The Sweatshop Union. The music dropped like a brick and five guys ran on stage. I was at first reluctant to get into the show but as soon as they started rapping the whole room moved toward the stage. I was trapped in the crowd and was soon trapped in the music. It didn’t take long before I was jumping and throwing my hands in the air. The message sounded familiar and incredibly true but it had never been brought to me with such fierce honesty: do not settle for what you are fed and you have a responsibility and the power to bring real positive change.

We as consumers are responsible for the things we buy. The fact I had such a limited understanding of hip hop as only cars and drugs and women was completely my fault. I had accepted what I had been fed to me by television and radio. It was my ignorance and inactivity that allowed this to happen. It is my job as a fan of music to seek true artists with something honest and meaningful to say. It was clear that the artists on stage were not driven to make it big. They were not interested in being put in the same category as Tide and Oreos: a product. This is the trend in the music industry. Watch MTV for five minutes and if you are lucky enough to actually see music on it at all, you will see what I mean. You can see all kinds of music pushed through the commercial machine. Artists that get attention are ones that will sell records and make a small amount of people a lot money.

Posted on December 15, 2006 12:00 AM