Is Hip-Hop Dead?

Rhythm & Poetry. The art of hip-hop is of the most unique arts of them all. Speaking from poverty, starvation, violence, hip-hop artists have made impacts in communities through their expression and display of the art they design. From the 80’s hip hop of the rise of DJ’s and straight up funkiness, to the fiery messages of contemporary rap music has proved that the evolution of the genre only continues to speak to the souls of those struggling and those willing to fight back. It is a monger of rebellion, and is a showcase of the value of being original and unique. It’s not that hip-hop is dying, it’s that hip-hop is immortal, it can never die.
I don’t believe in bad art. The mind, heart, and soul are blizzards of snowflakes of emotions and situations and feelings that could never be compared to the next. Music is art’s language, and it’s diversity within hip-hop is of the most extreme. Rap speaks against what is accepted in society, and promotes what is not. The drug and violence infused lyrics to the full blown attacks against the government, racism, and gangs expresses a side of life that everyone seems to be so fearful of facing. It is insight, knowledge of the world humanity has chosen to make itself blind to. Hip-hop is the voice of true struggle, true dedication, and true expression of what it is like to make it from the roughest areas in the United States to obtain the ability to influence millions. It is the story of rage, sadness, and prosperity. The poster child of what life is truly all about, climbing more walls than you build. Hip-hop is not dead, hip-hop has grown.
I can’t honestly say Lil Uzi, 21 Savage, or Young Thug are positively influential people that all of the kids should listen to. They glorify the very concept that hip-hop was created to teach about and revolutionize. However, the new age of popular rap music empowers the body. The ravaging, dark beats in combination with the simplistic rhymes and unique sound equate to much more than the lyrics. It is the art of nightmare, of finding a way to fit in, to grow in the peak within the valleys of the world.  Kendrick Lamar, Joey Bada$$, ASAP Rocky, and J Cole hold down the fortress of hip hop’s strongest form, poetry and strength. These contemporary rappers carry on the ways of hip-hop’s pioneers, like Nas, Tupac, Scarface, while others carry on the message of NWA, Public Enemy, and Eminem. The art of what rap music has become, in correlation with the legacy created by its originators, is to at least be appreciated.
Rap music is rebellion, anger, a middle finger to what the world tells you to be. Because you can be anything you create for yourself, anything you truly choose to be. Whether that be the gangster that has survived the trials and tribulations of insanity and has made it as the character they always grew and strived to be, or the soldier that has evolved and risen from the slums and hood of America to offer the epitome of knowledge and stories to directly impact the youth and civilization itself.  Hip-hop will never die, because it is creation. It is in the hands of its own history, it is grasped by the everlasting struggle of life, and will always thrive to be the poetry one needs to hear whether it be to not feel alone, or to know that there is a way out, a light ahead. Hip-hop is immortal, as all music is, because art is something that can never decease in to the wind of time, but only grow in the spirit of expression, and creation. Hip-hop is not dead, hip-hop is as alive as your own heart, mind, & soul.
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