I guess all of us pundits have one same column we keep writing over and over.  :)  Enter Minister Paul Scott. I’ve been reading his columns online for at least a couple of years now.

I believe the story of what happened to hiphop is more complex than what he has laid out below. For example, what about the many external and internal factors of Black political and social development between the 1970s and the present that, in many ways, had Black people reject the goals and objectives of the Black Power movement? Regardless of my questions, he has made some good points in this one. And his memory of certain events match mine (which, means, of course, he’s RIGHT :)).

Note: I’m guilty of some editing and fact-correcting here.

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The Hip Hop Conspiracy

By TRUTH Minista Paul Scott

With her legacy of slavery and oppression, to say that this country has done some bad things to Black folks is an understatement. We all know about the African Holocaust/Maafa (the slave trade) and the Tuskegee
Experiment as well as other examples of the
mistreatment of Afrikan people by the European. But in a society that has corrupted everything Black to serve its own evil purposes, how could we think that HipHop would be exempt from its evil schemes?

We all know the well told story of how when Hip Hop first started in the mid-to-late 1970s, it was about partying. By the late 1980s, the HipHop nation under the leadership of President Chuck D and Secretary of Defense Professor Griff, young Black America was exposed to the teachings of Malcolm X and Huey P. Newton.

We are very familiar with the story of rap’s golden era, as it is known among the cool, HipHop insiders who remember when breaking meant more than someone’s arm being broken in response to a “diss.” And when graffiti on a wall was an easily overlooked misdemeanor, not a felony. And when the color of a  bandana wrapped around somebody’s head wasn’t perceived as a glorified death warrant.

So the million-dollar question becomes: how did the sound of sweet soul music become sour? Or better yet, as Public Enemy asked in the early 90’s: “Who Stole the Soul?”

Let us begin in 1988, when so-called  “gangsta” rap began to emerge out of California and how a few young Brothas out of Compton staged a hostile takeover of HipHop.

For a time “Conscious rap” and “Gangsta rap” coexisted in almost perfect harmony, a musical ying and yang, so to speak. When the elders would criticize the lyrics of some to the songs, the conscious rappers would serve as ambassadors of goodwill for the “G’s” and
quickly point out that the rappers were just being attacked because they were young Black men saying something that white society did not want to hear.

After all, they were just calling it as they saw it—or, in the vernacular, they were just “keeping it real.” How many times was heard their worn-out Arnold Schwarzenegger excuse, “Well, he can kill 100 people in a movie and nobody says a word, but  when we..” Well, they were very right and very wrong. The young rappers underestimated the depths that this society would go to to prevent the “rising of a Black Messiah” or to destroy anything that would serve as a catalyst for social change. As Neely Fuller once said, “If you do not understand white supremacy, everything else will just confuse you.”

In the early-to-mid 90s, the anti-gangsta rap forces in the Black community formed a dangerous alliance with white conservatives that had no love for Black youth from the giddy up. They took the lead on the “gangsta rap
issue” under the guise of “family values.” So the
battle against negative lyrics became an attack on Black youth. Instead of rap that talked about drugs and violence being attacked, all rappers that rapped about anything stronger then “Parents Just Don’t Understand” (remember the debut of Will “Fresh Prince” Smith?) were seen as the
enemy.

Since the Black Nationalist community—who could have “attacked” the negative rap but not the rapper, or “love the sinner but hate the sin”—were still banned from the media, the only people that our youth saw preaching against negative lyrics were old preachers
and civil rights crusaders. The media loved promoting the C. Delores Tuckers as poster children of music morality. For over two years the battle raged between the the Hip Hop Nation and The Family Values Nation.

See, the year 1992 changed the game. The LA Rebellion (called by the white media the LA Riots or the Rodney King Verdict Aftermath).  Until then, the effect of rap music on the minds of Black youth was still a matter of debate. Could the rebellious words of the rappers actually be manifested in the actions of
Afrikan youth?

White America wondered: if we really ticked Black people off, would they really Fight the Power, as rap group Public Enemy urged? In May of 1992, white America’s worst nightmare was realized when thousands of Black people took to the streets, with rap music
supplying the soundtrack. White reporters were shocked when, interviewing “gang members” that they saw that the grassroots could easily articulate the oppression of Afrikan people, both nationally and globally. Rap with a message had to be stopped by any means necessary.

When the dust settled the gangsta rappers emerged stronger than ever, the Family Values people emerged with more political clout and the only casualties of war were the “conscious rappers.” Was it a coincidence that the majority of rappers that did not make it through this politically created “Rap Armageddon” unscarred were the “conscious rappers” Sister Souljah, X Clan, Public Enemy, Paris) And the ones that did make it took a 180-degree turn and got smart, finding out that the “gangsta” style was the safer and more lucrative wave of the future (see Ice Cube post-NWA career). So in the end, it was not gangsta rap that destroyed positive rap; it was the anti-rap forces that put the nail in the coffin of pro-Black rap.

So what was left was symbol without substance—or, as The Temptations sang, “a ball of confusion.” All of the energy that was created by X-Clan and Paris had no oulet. Our children knew that they were being attacked but without the guidance of the Black Nationalist community, had no idea who the enemy was.
They became modern day rebels without a cause.

The enemy was no longer The Man or his racist, oppressive system; instead, the media promoted the idea that the Black man was the enemy who must be destroyed. We were no longer “Brothers” or “Strong Black men”; we were Niggas—“real” Niggas doing “real” things, like busting a cap in another nigga. Passe was the idea that we were Nubian Kings, protecting our Nubian Queens; naw, Sun, we was now they pimps and they was our Hos.

It seems that the music that we created has become just another tool for the oppression of the Afrikan mind. So that is why today all of the music sounds the same. The music of 2007 sounds the same as the music of 1995. Our youth seem to be all talking, acting and
dressing the same. Why? Because it is easier to control a monolithic people. As Carter G. Woodson once broke down, “When you control a man ‘s thinking you do not have to worry about his actions.” Hip Hop has become White Supremacy’s multi-billion dollar marketing scheme.

But all is not lost. A group of some of the strongest Afrikan minds on the planet have gathered to form The Hip Hop Intelligence Project. Our goal: once and for all solve the Hip Hop Conspiracy.

Most people would not place the solving of the Hip Hop Conspiracy in the same category with the questions surrounding the disappearance of Jimmy Hoffa or the assassination of Martin Luther King. But does it matter for those of us Afrikans still in the struggle?

You bet your Timberland boots it does….

For more information on the Hip Hop Intelligence Project, contact Scott at hiphopintel@yahoo.com .