The Big Sell Out: The Embrace of Conformity in Hip-Hop

Society is filled with individuals who conform to the rule of the majority. Many would rather transform their actions to fall in line with the collective masses than to exercise their individualistic beliefs. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote that we live in a modern world where everyone seems to crave the anesthetizing security of being identified with the majority. It appears that nowhere is this more apparent than in today’s Hip-hop music.

It appears that long gone are the days of the golden era of Hip-hop when the music was as diverse as the artists who recorded it. We can categorize the differences in the ways that the music moved us: the party grooves of Doug E. Fresh and Heavy D; the socially conscious philosophies of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions; the hypnotic lyrical flow of Rakim and Big Daddy Kane; the funny storytelling rhymes of Bizmarkie and Slick Rick; and the juxtaposed feminine perspective of Salt-N-Pepa and MC Lyte.

Today the music has regressed into complete lyrical anomie. The majority of artists embrace a counter-culture of norms and ideals. Artists promote violence as a vice to be glorified and yet lack the maturity to accept responsibility for its effect on our community. By no means do I blame the artists for the social ills that they write about, America’s demons are rooted much deeper than the Hip-hop culture, but it is negligible to perpetuate criminality and sell it as art.

In truth, many rap artists who write about criminality, drugs, and pimpin’ do not participate in the lifestyle that they claim to embrace. The decision to conform with the view of the masses is dictated by record sales and the pressure to produce profits. Artists often jump on what is currently selling and abandon personal ideals and beliefs in order to be accepted by the masses. Many choose to follow comfort rather than conviction. Hip-Hop music is a sound that is heavily influenced by the inner-city streets and artists feel an obligation to “keep it real”, which ultimately means to keep the identity of one’s behavior, attitude and sound in tune with that of the streets. During the mid to late ‘80s, Black power, pride and self-awareness dominated the rap music landscape. Essentially, it became cool to have Black pride and it was the “in” thing to rhyme about. Being Black was “keepin’ it real.” With the rise of NWA in the late ‘80s, the gangster mentality took center stage and thus became the focal point of the industry.

African-American men have traditionally been emasculated by a society that says that in order to be respected as a man you must have money, power, and status, and yet, the power structure plays the gatekeeper that blocks his access to those same ideals. Alienated and frustrated, young Black men thus become fixated on attaining these ideals with a “by any means necessary” type of zeal. This has led to high rates of incarceration of Black males. Perhaps, for African-American males the biggest effect of conforming to the dominant society’s values and image of success can be measured by what has to be sacrificed in order to attain it.

The stereotype of the uneducated rapper has been overplayed in our society. The reality is that there are many rap artists who have college degrees, or at least have some level of college education. But until we stop conforming to the stereotype of what a rapper is suppose to be, we will continue to undervalue our worth to the Hip-Hop community, and thus limit the opportunity to take the art form to the next level.