St. Martin's Press

It's Bigger Than Hip Hop:
The Rise of the Post-Hip Hop Generation

By M.K. Asante Jr.
Publication Date: September 18, 2008
St. Martin's Press/$25.95/352 pages
www.itsbiggerthanhiphop.com
www.mkasante.com

A Review by Markland Walker

The death of hip hop has been announced periodically by rappers, critics, and fans for well over a decade, even as the art form has exploded in popularity all over the world. One of the most memorable such moments came in 2006, during the pinnacle of hip hop’s global success, when one of hip hop’s most prolific and respected artists — Nasir Jones — declared that the art form had been killed by commercialization.

According to Nas: “Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game/Reminiscin’ when it wasn’t all business/It forgot where it started/So we gather here for the dearly departed.”

The declaration is really a critique of how far hip hop has strayed from its roots as a politically charged art form based in strong storytelling and forged in the African-American and Latino communities of New York City’s South Bronx.

In his new book, 26-year-old M.K. Asante Jr., a professor at Morgan State University and an award-winning filmmaker and writer, sets out to describe the obstacles that have prevented hip hop from being loyal to its origins. He also seeks to define the role that a post-hip hop generation must take on in the continued movement for freedom and justice. But Asante is much more successful with the former goal, as he brilliantly places hip hop on a continuum of musical creations originating in the rich experience of black Americans. Blues, jazz, gospel, and soul have each faced a similar fate, he argues: birth in a black community, an ascension to popularity in mainstream America with the hope that it could be a catalyst for social change, and then a generational abandonment by blacks combined with a co-opting by white American performers and consumers.

Photo courtesy of www.asante.info

If we accept his conclusions, it’s a historical pattern that raises the question of what a post-hip hop generation would bring to the table. And who exactly among today’s youth would belong to this group?

Asante briefly tackles both question on page 7:

The term “post-hip hop” describes a period of time – right now – of great transition for a new generation in search of a deeper, more encompassing understanding of themselves in a context outside of the corporate hip hop monopoly. ...Post-hip hop is an assertion of agency that encapsulates this generation’s broad range of abilities, ideals, and ideas, as well as incorporates recent social advances and movements (i.e., the women’s movement, the antiwar movement, gay rights, and antiglobalization) that hip hop either failed or refused to prioritize.

This is as close to a manifesto as Asante comes, and for the remainder of the book, he explores the historical roots, social ills, and sociopolitical barriers that have prevented hip hop from uplifting its original progenitors financially and in the eyes of the world. One of the most striking parts of the book comes when Asante shows how media images have powerfully shaped not only the older generation’s vision of black youth but black youth’s vision of themselves. In a skillful pun, the author points how the "reel" images – on television and film, in magazines, and on the radio – have replaced the "real" even as those who pretend to be real are only performing for the reel.

But he is most compelling in his indictment of the corporate heads who serve as the gatekeepers and, in essence, the cultural dictators , since they decide which records get made and distributed. Asante argues that colonialism is alive and well – nowhere is that more apparent, he says, than in the $15 billion-dollar-a-year hip hop industry. Hip hop, for example, just like the raw materials of colonized territories, is taken from its original owners in its most base form, then processed, manufactured, and resold to the same people, who themselves receive no financial benefit.

But, you may be wondering, what of the famous faces of success – wealthy rappers such as Jay-Z and P. Diddy? Don’t get too excited, Asante says, because as wonderful as the successes of those artists have been, their ownership and power is limited, as their record labels are owned by even larger entertainment companies.

The book lives up to its name by showing that the myriad issues facing African-American lives are bigger than hip hop, but he falls short in illustrating exactly how the post-hip hop generation should be using this art form as an effective tool in bringing about social change. They are, after all, up against potent principalities and institutions that live by inhumane standards, he argues.

Still, It’s Bigger Than Hip Hop is a significant historical resource for hip hop lovers across the world — but it is also a call to arms, a warning that hip hop’s fate actually is in the hands of the members of the would-be post-hip hop generation; and that the art form's demise need not be inevitable, should they choose to utilize this highly creative art form as it was originally intended – as a tool in the struggle for freedom, justice, and equality.