[The Earl Of Slander]

Right, so I was just cooking some food with my cousin, and I’d put OutKast on, and the track ‘Roses’ spurred a discussion about what she called the “sophomoric” aspect of a lot of hip-hop. The basic thrust of her complaint was that, while she really likes a lot hip-hop in a slightly detached way, she also finds it difficult to find that much in the genre that she really makes a visceral emotional connection to in the same way that she connects to other very “lyric-centric” artists, like Bob Dylan ETC. The reason she gave for this was that, although she thinks a lot of hip-hop is very clever, funny, great to dance to, fantastic musically, ETC, she often finds this paired with a lack of real emotional insight.

She especially had issues with a lot of male hip-hop, which she thought was slightly gross in it’s relationship to women, and found that, although she likes a lot of more “socially conscious” stuff that I’ve played her, like, say, Public Enemy or Gangstarr, it still frequently seems one-sided, shallowly angry, and so on. You know the arguments. Quite a bit of the problem for her in really engaging with the music can largely be placed at the feet of her being white, female and middle-class, something that I can understand. I mean I’m white and male, and I sometimes have similar issues with the genre, without even having to deal with the misogyny.

In talking about “other kinds of hip-hop”, I kind of found that, while there is a lot of ‘intelligent’ rap that I love, such as, say, MF Doom or Kool Keith or some Wu Tang related stuff, ETC, most of the stuff I mentioned was very much about being sort of cold and emotionally removed. The appeal is in the wit, the creation of characters, the cleverness of the construction ETC. It’s not simple or ‘gangsta’ at all, but it’s still not really about the emotional connection with the artist. The same goes for political stuff, which is often more about the anger than the vulnerability or the people.

I don’t want to make too many generalisations here, because of course I have heard hip-hop that’s very nuanced, complex, ETC (Mos Def comes to mind). Also, I don’t want to give the impression that this is me dissing on hip-hop at all, because I really do a love a lot of the music. However, and I’m vainly trying to avoid sounding too pretentious here, the point is really that I struggled to name many hip-hop artists that really tugged those old heartstrings or made me think about the “human condition” in the same way that someone like Dylan does. Hence, I’d like you to recommend some artists which provide a counter-argument.