>do we write off "hip hop intellectuals" because:
>
>a. whenever hip hop is examined in that context, by that
>"type" of person, they're bound to get it wrong because
>they're outsiders, or because of other cultural reasons, or
>because of whatever.

That happens and that's expected. Some old dude trying to get his scientific method on still imports his values into the data collection and hypothesis building.

What is supposed to be the antidote to that, is the 2nd wave of hip hop scholars who grew up on hip hop, and now want a place @ the academy.

If OKP is any indication...
If SOHH is any indication...

Hip Hop scholarship will be dominated by people who are pretty much on that underground and/or boho tip, with occassional nods to the very top of the mainstream. I.E. cats who would rather listen to Common wreck shit, but have a few words for Lil Wayne. It's like the Lil Chris listeners don't go to college to become professors in hip hop studies. (make all the jokes you want, go to a black college,or any college for that matter, and see them folks dance to the most "ignorant" shit out there. Prolly protest it if the price was right though.)

In essence their scholarship reflects their record collection. (And best believe it's vinyl)

Take the 2 primers, Mark Anthony Neal's Book and Jeff Chang's book.
And just compare that to the hip hop you experience on a regular basis.

A lot of folks (especially the ones who take a hip hop class) take the view that hip hop is this shiny happy music made by brown peoples (and cool whites) that was then corrupted by evil corporate interests. It was all Afrikan pride (with a K) until corporations figured out how to make a buck off of it. And of course then we started seeing all the gangstas, pimps, and hustlaz (emphasis on the az).

^^^I seriously hate people like this. I feel sorry for their children. They should be subjected to one of them Australian kidnap the babies type shit.

But then again most folks don't ride with my platform's cornerpiece either, "Hip Hop is horrible and been so, deal with it".

>b. the specific individuals we define as hip hop
>intellectuals, by and large, don't know what they're talking
>about. and are opportunistic. and are annoying.

Take Dyson. Now I personally don't believe he knows what he's talking about when it comes down to specifics. But most of folks on Dyson's level are really using hip hop as a metaphor or in some cases window dressing. (I won't go into the activist/researcher angle, that's old and dead)

I never get the sense that he wrote about Tupac, because he admired the records, or because he was interested in the Icon and what it meant to black America.

He's really working at a high level of abstraction, and hip hop is just a tool for him to make the points he wants to make. So he's not really ever wrong...which in itself is troubling.

But that kinda scholarship is not hip hop studies.

It's not really about hip hop, the people, or the culture.
It's really about a certain demographic of the rap listening audience.

>these are two pretty different questions.

yeah
k. orr