I received my shipment from Columbia House the other day (am I the only one who still belongs? Doesn't everyone belong to Columbia House at some point in their lives?). In it was A Tribe Called Quest's first album (along with the new Queens of the Stone Age, Radiohead's OK Computer and the Spiderman soundtrack. Hey it was a 4 for 1 sale!)
I'll reserve judgement on the other three because I haven't really had time to listen to them yet. (Gone are the days when I could devote hours to really listening to new CDs. Now I can only listen twice a day during my godawful 45-minute commute.) I had ATCQ on cassette many moons ago when if first came out. I rarely listen to hip hop these days. Tribe Called Quest was the only hip hop group I ever actually spentmoney on. Even when I was younger I was put off by a lot of the violence and language. But I guess I was kind of a nerd...
Looking back now, it seems that the soul of hip hop was at a crossroads in the late 80's, early 90's. I'm sure I'm not the first person to think of this, but it occured to me while listening to the CD again after all this time. On the one side was De La Soul, Tribe Called Quest, and the like. I don't know what you'd call it. I'll call it fun, feel-good hip hop. On the other side was what was to become gangsta rap, NWA, Geto Boys, etc.
We all know who won out. If I was more of a conspiracy-minded individual, I'd say The Man (for lack of a better term) determined that the mindless negativity of guns-and-hoes rap was a good vehicle to manipulate young black people and keep white folks afraid.
I'm not, though, so I'll just say that maybe the battle for the soul of hip hop was lost a decade ago, but the war isn't over. Hip hop will either evolve into something meaningful, maybe through 'alternative' or 'underground' styles, or it'll die.
Or maybe it'll do neither. I guess I'm at the age where it doesn't really matter much anymore. I've always had a weakness for rock, anyway, but that's another story.