After attending a Lupe Fiasco concert in Detroit a few weeks ago, the amount of diversity I witnessed at the show got me to thinking about the impact of hip-hop on my life.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve listened to hip-hop since I was 10 years old. As a white kid growing up in the suburbs, I would raid my older brother\u2019s CD collection that included the Wu-Tang Clan, Tupac Shakur, The Notorious B.I.G., Dr. Dre and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony. I would sneak off with the discs and pop them in my player and become hypnotized by the raw and rugged language that these men were using.<\/p>\n
I had never heard that kind of language on \u201cMighty Morphin Power Rangers,\u201d so my need for the music grew as I matured. I later discovered musicians like A Tribe Called Quest, The Roots, Jay-Z and Common. As I became older and wiser, my need for hip-hop wanted more substance.<\/p>\n
As a teenage hip-hop fanatic, criticism was never shy from my older peers. My parents were confused \u2014 and sometimes angered \u2014 with my music selection. Looking back, I guess that would be understandable considering I continuously bumped Mobb Deep\u2019s \u201cThe Infamous\u201d in my room for a good year at the age of 14.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy are you listening to music you can\u2019t relate to?\u201d my father would ask. \u201cYou don\u2019t have any idea about what these guys are preaching.\u201d<\/p>\n
Touch\u00e9, dad.<\/p>\n
Sure, the likes of Gangstarr, Nas and Big L rapped about things I had no concept of: Survival. Hip-hop music reaches out to youth because it\u2019s about rebellion, and kids love to rebel.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever,\u201d dad said as he would flip on his Pink Floyd albums. \u201cJust don\u2019t get carried away.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the success of radio swept the country, it seems every generation dealt with musical conflict from the older crowds. When my mom and dad were growing up in the 1960s, both of their parents didn\u2019t understand why they were wasting their time with such noise like The Beatles and Elvis Presley.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not a parent yet, but I already feel like I\u2019m beginning to distance myself from the majority of new music on the radio. I can\u2019t imagine how I\u2019m going to react when my future daughter asks me to buy Soulja Boy\u2019s 18th album.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to judge different generations and their pop cultures because to each its own. If I would have grown up in the 60\u2019s listening to The Doors and The Rolling Stones, I\u2019m sure I would never have given OutKast my undivided attention in the 90\u2019s.<\/p>\n
I could take the easy route and explain why I think people should stop their biased ways and give new music a shot, but I would be a huge hypocrite. You will never catch me listening to Martina McBride, Nickelback or Justin Bieber, for example.<\/p>\n
Once you find your brand of music \u2014 whether it is country, Christian rock or jazz \u2014 don\u2019t let anybody take it from you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After attending a Lupe Fiasco concert in Detroit a few weeks ago, the amount of diversity I witnessed at the show got me to thinking about the impact of hip-hop on my life. I\u2019ve listened to hip-hop since I was 10 years old. As a white kid growing up in the suburbs, I would raid […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[1149,1147,1148,1272,73],"class_list":["post-4781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tartan-news","tag-childhood","tag-hip","tag-hop","tag-joseph-stueve","tag-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"cc_featured_image_caption":{"caption_text":false,"source_text":false,"source_url":false},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5s3vR-1f7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4781"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4782,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4781\/revisions\/4782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sinclairclarion.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}