hip hop = h2o

hip hop is like water. yeah i said it! it makes perfect sense too! hip hop has evolved over the last 30 years the same way our water has. i'd like to consider myself a purist and i want my hip hop the same way i drink my water. follow me...

20 to 30 years ago, it was hardly out of the ordinary for someone to grab a glass from the cabinet, turn on the faucet and drink water. thirsty = drink from the faucet. end of discussion. on a hot summer day, you'd throw ice cubes in your glass and treat your faucet water like it was the second coming of coke. you could have company over and have nothing in the refrigerator to offer to drink, but add a glass, some ice, and a faucet and you were ready to serve the hood! it was never considered a problem to drink water from the tap. before pollution became a major problem, drinking from a regular water tap was easy and expected; it was the way to drink your water.

in the beginning of hip hop, it came straight from the "tap." unfiltered and clean, it was absorbed by those who drank it. hip hop didn't need any filtering because of: (a)the people who; and, (b) the way it was delivered to us. it provided all the proper mental nourishment for us to grow and build. it was the sound of the people, for the people. in essence it only made us stronger.

before corporations and commercialism became a major problem, hip hop was unpolluted. the radio was the faucet while all you had to do was turn it on to quench your thirst for hip hop. today, 8 out of 10 songs on the radio are easily forgetable. now i listen to my music the same way the same way i drink my water: bottled. purists drink clean water; i want clean, unfiltered HIP HOP. unfortunately, we live in an age where everything has to be filtered/censored/bottled in order to keep us satisfied. water purists get their aquafina and perrier. what is the future for hip hop purists?

i never thought i'd see the day when up-and-coming hip hop generations would be so "blahzay" about jay-z and nas squashing their beef to unite into one hip hop force. those two living legends can do more for the genre by themselves than a group of any other rappers combined could. apparently hip hop in the old sense doesn't taste as good as this new school hip hop. that's why today i need to listen to my "bottled water" music. but as usual, what do i know, these are just my thoughts ladies and gentlemen.