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Hip Hop and the GOP
Loading ...“We have, I’m happy to say, a lot of voices out there …”
— Sen. John McCain, when asked who’s running the Republican Party
Call me crazy, but lately I’ve been thinking that Hip Hop has more in common with the Republican Party — more specifically, the much discussed “Far Right” — than we might ever have imagined.
Here’s what I mean: For years, what Hip Hop is and isn’t has been the topic of intense debate.
Mainstream media outlets are dominated by simplistic, hook-driven Rap music while guest appearances, collaborations, mash-ups and remixes are so common that it’s difficult to know whether you’re listening to Rap, Pop, Folk, Electronica or some confluence of all the above.
And more recently, the emerging Hipster (or Blipster, for Black Hipster) sub-culture has been generating interest among Hip Hop observers and critics. Apparently, those who are assigned (yet often reject) the Hipster label gravitate toward obscure music, skateboards, form-fitting jeans, Palestinian keffiyeh scarves, quirky novelty T-shirts (like with Sonic the Hedgehog) and Mohawk haircuts.
In other words, the cultural offspring of producer/rapper/fashion designer Kanye West.
The Far Right is suffering a similar identity crisis. According to a recent USA Today/Gallop poll, about 52 percent of Americans could not identify who officially spoke for the Republican Party. And according to the same pollsters, even fewer said they held a favorable view of their own party.
>But the similarities don’t end there.
>Read more
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