at least as I see it.

>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.

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


>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).

In particular I'm thinking of the prevailing (on OKP and in some academic circles at least) view that blues was in and of itself a socially conscious, uplifting music.

People confuse the fact that it took balls to make the music with the fact that the music, like most folk musics before and since (and I'd include hip hop, at least in its earliest forms, in this) deal/dealt with, and frequently celebrated, similar 'horrible' (to use your word) subject matter. I want to sit people down and play 'She Stabbed Me With An Ice-Pick' for them.

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