Planet Rock: The Story of Hip Hop and the Crack Generation

[ITW 2012]

You can find the whole thing on google video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gewii_ECU7U

[Georgy Zhukov]

I think the best thing about this documentary was how the original gangster rappers of the late 80's and early 90's wh have actually lived the lifestyle were calling out all of the modern rappers for being posers. ie. Rick Ross etc.

I see a huge parallel with Muddy Waters comment on modern day blues (in this context he was referring to blues musicians of the 60's and 70's) he felt a lot of musicians black and white (he mentioned Bob Dylan and Eric Clapton) were very good blues musicians their music lack the authenticity early blues had. That these men and women were starving. They grew up to share cropping parents, forced to move north and live in slums, many out on the streets. There's a reason its called the blues, they are in pain, depressed, hungry and in some cases, horny.

Huge impact on rock and roll and rap/hip hop.

[ITW 2012]

I think the best thing about this documentary was how the original gangster rappers of the late 80's and early 90's wh have actually lived the lifestyle were calling out all of the modern rappers for being posers. ie. Rick Ross etc.

I thought that was hilarious how Rick Ross was a corrections officer before he stole Freeway's identity.

Edited December 12, 2011 by ITW 2012

[Guest Len B'stard]

Hip Hop was as relevant as it's politics in relation to that crack generation, once that whole thing and the resultant social situations arising from it kind of died away, so did hip hop. Kinda like soul music i guess, it lasted for as long as there was that sort of post civil rights black power thing and had to evolve to a more poppier thing when your black person of the 80s didn't give a second shit about "whats goin' on".

[Guest Len B'stard]

I'm aware there was soul music before Whats Going On, in fact it's one of those gradually evolving things but i don't think you can justifiably separate that music from the social context that it came out of and was, it's a firm believe of mine that that music, that the existence of Motown and Stax were, in a way, political in their very nature. You can't separate all that from the people it was made by and made for and the oppression of the day by the established order of the day against those people that it had worked around and through and over.

When these genres cease to be relevant to the core of their community or the standing of those communities in relation to society changes then you can't really say that they have the same effect or power or even that there is the same kind of need for them to act as they did and stand for what they did anymore. When i say they died doesn't mean there was this sort of mass exodus where every hip hop MC put down their mic and walked into the ocean, far from it, as you say the underground scene is bigger than ever but it has nothing to say anymore and it hasn't since the mid 90s, truth be told. Funnily enough, about the same time the mainstream REALLY caught on to it. It's cool, it's club music, it's fun, i like it but it's not that beautiful thing brimming with power and potential that it once was.

Same with Soul/Motown, it has it's equivalent nowadays but you can't sit there and tell me that any of that shit is a patch on what Marvin Gaye meant to his community or whist Motown meant just by it's very existence to it's community. After that shit was all done it was all cocaine and Rick James which, again, i like, i have the albums but it ain't the same thing.

Maybe it's less about the politics and more about the generation that made the shit passing on or passing into old age.