I Used to Love H.E.R.

What is hiphop? There are the 4 elements of course, but musically what defines the genre? My contention? Nothing & everything defines it. I bumped into a Canuck recently who asked me what kind of music I listened to. Everything (the caveat "except country" is slowly being dropped...) I say, but mainly hiphop I guess.

Still?!

This one phrase hit hard in two places. My age, and my musical interest. Now I was on the defensive and I was trying to justify it. I put up a weak reply, one which I will likely not remedy. But here it goes. My dad can skip to the next post. Rohit remarked that I should use Nas to teach 'thug' English. (as an aside on the topic of gangsta c++ programming: on the 1st day of my last work term I'm sure my office mates were as surprised as I was when "The Cross" came blasting out of my computer. That clearly wasn't the headphone jack then...)

But I've come to theorize that hiphop is very much like English. It a rapidly mutable form of music, it borrows elements from any genre it wants, and in return it leaves it a little cooler. But it's fickle. And will drop the flavour of the month in search of that new hot sound. One minute it's a tabla, and the next it's a didgeridoo. Like in English, the new "words" bubble to the surface, yadda yadda yadda, and then we get tired of it and it falls by the wayside. But now it's a part of our lexicon.

Sprite Remix anyone? The Grey Album sparked a huge interest in "mashups", which of course is an old hiphop trick. Even in the internet world there were mashups back in the day by Prizefighter that I still enjoy. (even iGangsta beefs as another "dj" put out a Prizefighter diss track (the Backbone remix)) I don't know what the new flavour is gonna be, but I'm pretty confident that there will continue to be this musical juggernaut crushing the charts everywhere it goes.

So what defines hiphop music? Like English, nothing & everything. Once it enters, you don't get it back. It is and always will be. So the same way Quebec protects its heritage & culture by having language laws, so too must music critics put shields up deriding hiphop in an attempt to preserve their favourite forms of music. Don't worry friend, it will continue to exist. For now.

In the end, I've decided I don't need to justify it. It's a personal preference, and like hating onions, that's just the way it is.

I still love H.E.R.

Sri Lanka