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While The Commercialized Music Industry Focuses On Gangster And Egoistic Versions Of Hip Hop Ironically Christian Rappers Lift Up A Social Message
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| Rapper Derrick Minor In His Anti-Materialism |
By Kamau Austin, Publisher and Editor-and-Chief, The Black News Scoop and Scoop AMS Publications.
Back in the day, when pop music was the major commercial musical force - I welcomed the messages of hip hop music. Pop icons Michael Jackson and Prince dominated the air waves.
However, to me the major media seemed to influence the message of the music largely toward eccentric opulence from these music icons. However, I wondered where was the music of the masses of our people reflecting our harsh realities?
Hip Hop was in my discernment a reaction over against the political detachment of iconic driven pop music. In short hip hop, spring-boarded in NYC, was a voice for young people in the inner cities.
Over the years into the 80's Hip Hop became a source of social commentary and critique. Groups like Public Enemy, X-Clan, KRS-One, A Tribe Called Quest, and many others in a myriad of ways challenged the major media narrative towards positive messages of Black liberation and empowerment. Since the rise of NWA and gangster or egoistic rap, progressive voices in hip hop, now largely a commercialized mainstream music, have been too often marginalized - enter Christian hip hop.
Ironically, Christian hip hop a sub-culture of rap, is picking up the mantle of progressive socially conscious rap. Artists like LaCrae and Derek Minor are prolifically and profoundly making socially relevant music and lyrics with rhythmic poetic flourish.
They are - I dare say, the new social prophets with a powerful musical soul beat. They call into question, unlikely mainstream Christian concerns like - police brutality, gentrification, and the prison industrial complex. For instance listen to Derek Minor's rap "Free," below...
