To many casual listeners, these traits seem like prerequisites for that coveted Billboard success, dispensed without nuance or the faintest desire to surpass the one-dimensional.

A microcosm of much of what Spotify re-designated as “Pop Rap” within their 2019 “Wrapped” findings, it plays up to all the clout-oriented egotism and excess that’s besieged the chart’s upper-reaches. While Nicki has insisted that a “portion” of the proceeds will be allocated to The Bail Project, the track itself exists in its own gaudy vacuum. Yet in a time where activism is at a sustained height, what’s seen as the genre’s mainstream feels increasingly estranged from the struggles that necessitated its creation.Īs calls for police reform reached a fever pitch, Nicki Minaj and Tekashi 6ix9ine’s 'TROLLZ' was breaking YouTube’s record for most views of a hip-hop video in a single day. At the height of their powers, Public Enemy’s Chuck D enlightened NME on the pivotal purpose that hip-hop serves in broadening otherwise shuttered minds: “It’s a college course in black life,” he remarked in 1988, “as a matter of fact, it’s a whole damn degree you can earn.” Speaking just months before full-scale rioting engulfed Miami after police shot and killed 23-year-old Clement Lloyd, the commonality between the unrest of 31 years prior and today epitomizes why hip-hop’s sermons on injustice are still integral to the curriculum.

So for every exercise in elation, you had a stark but danceable piece of political commentary, such as Grandmaster Flash’s iconic journey through urban squalor on 'The Message.' And in times where systemic discrimination reared its head most acutely, hip-hop responded in kind, providing a prescient and educational soundtrack.

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