Stealing or Sharing?

"...Hip-hop is a Black thing and whites have historically stolen Black culture..." (Kitwana, 3-4). This is what a Black girl insinuated in one of my classes a few weeks ago. I was pissed. We were watching an advertisement on youtube that had been on TV for awhile. It's called the "Slap Chop Rap." As lame as it is, the advertisement caught people's attention. After the clip had finished playing she raised her hand and said, "The only thing I noticed was that it is a whole rap/hip-hop commercial without one single Black person. Everyone in this advertisement is White. Hip-hop was originally a Black thing, created by Black people, and part of Black culture...." I remember walking out of class trying to get my head around what she was saying. To me, it was no big deal. There's tons of all Black music videos, why can't there be one that's all White?

After reading Kitwana's article, I think I understand where she's coming from. Kitwana argues that the reason White kids were drawn to hip-hop is because it captures the frustration of the youth without a voice and the struggles they face in life. And because the lyrics are so explicate, rife with themes of the street life, crime, drugs dealing, and so on, hip-hop is often made the scapegoat for the decline in American values and society as a whole. So although it's endorsed by the White youth of America, and is a huge presence in our media (MTV, BET, countless magazines, and even newspapers covering the hip-hop scene) it has this double-edged sword effect. The White youth want to embrace it and their parents want to blame it.

If I were a Black person, this would frustrate me. It takes White people's endorsement to make it popular, but then they want to put all the blame for societal problems on it, and then turn around and steal it? Although I do agree that the lyrics are not anything close to positive (the majority of the time), I don't think it's fair to put all the blame on hip-hop. Kitwana addresses this by saying, "Our country stands at a crucial crossroads...//...We're not placing great enough emphasis on educating or listening to the voices of American youth. Our public schools and quality of life for a significant number of our young are in serious decline" (Kitwana 9). Hip-hop is something they can relate to, not what got them in these situations to begin with. And although White kids have really latched on and embraced this Black culture, "no matter now mainstream hip-hop gets, it will never duplicate rock and roll's metamorphosis--becoming more strongly associated with white Americans than Blacks" (Kitwana 2).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=st3nmjTJmVk