The Break-up: When I ended my love affair with Hip Hop. By: Ayana S. Thomas

December 1979.  I was a 5 year old kindergartener who adored my mother, loved school, reading, my best friend “T” and my mother’s bi weekly Friday night fish fry.  This was a time when my Aunties, Uncles and Cousins would come over to my house and enjoy my mother’s world famous fried fish (at least it is world famous in my book), cornbread (that tasted like pound cake and still does) and potato salad.  This was also a time when I got the chance to listen to music and have a wonderful time with my family.  Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Earth Wind and Fire, Teddy Pendergrass and my main man Barry White were always staples at these fish frys just like hot sauce and slices of Wonder bread White bread were staples on the dinner table. 

At the time, I wasn’t allowed to have a television or radio in my bedroom but, the Christmas of 1979, both “T” and I received a Brown Fisher Price record player.  I received three vinyl records to go along with my record player.  The records were two story book records and one record that had a light blue label with the word “Sugar Hill” written in cursive rainbow colors across the label.  The record was called “Rapper’s Delight” and that’s when my love affair with Hip Hop began. 

Every day when I came home from school, I had to these words:

“I said to a hip hop the hippie the hippie
to the hip hip hop, and you don’t stop
the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat”

I can not tell you how many times I have uttered those words.  I can not tell you how many times I played that record.  The following year, I moved to North Carolina for two years so my mother could complete Nursing School.  My cousin was so jealous that I had this record that she broke the record in half.  I had such a fit that I told my mother that if she didn’t replace the record - I was going to run away and she would never see me again.  A few months later, when I came home for a visit – Rapper’s Delight was on my pillow!

Over the years – there have been hundreds of verses which my mom had to endure me playing over and over again.  It didn’t matter if they were east coast, west coast or dirty south rappers/groups.  If they had a good, bad, funny, sad or political message and were placed strategically over a hot musical track – I listened, bounced or shook my behind to it.  Until 2002.

In 2002 – I found out I was expecting my first child.  Although I was never offended by the misogyny in hip hop (artists referring to women as Big Booty Hoes or Gold Diggers never offended me because I always felt a sense of pride that I was not in those categories), when I found out I was having a son and I would be a single mother – I decided that maybe bumping to “Gin & Juice” by Snoop Dogg or “No Matter What They Say” by Little Kim was not the most appropriate music to play around my unborn son.  However, I wanted my son to have an appreciation for our music’s creativity and talent.  So, I decided I would play songs with clean lyrics or at least albums that didn’t have a parental advisory on the album cover.  I soon found out that meeting that criteria would be painfully difficult if not unachievable.

This is when I realized that I had to make a choice: feed my son with positive images of our people and ensure that his rolodex of vocabulary words had a sound foundation or give him the raw dirty look into how we view each other marred with negativity, sex objects, drug dealing thugs who worship a fictional Cuban drug lord named “Tony Montana”.  Did I want my son to think that it was ok to do a “bid” in jail or did I want him to aim high and use his God given talents to be a productive citizen?

I chose the latter and thus my relationship with Hip Hop became distant.  You have to understand, Hip Hop to me was like a drug and I was a fiend for knowing who was coming out with the n hottest lyrics so I couldn’t stop cold turkey.  I would try to tune in to the radio when my son was not around but by then artist like Weezy and Gucci Mane had entered the relationship and I was like “Really?!?!   Is it me or do I not know what they are saying?!?!  This is coming from a person who could recite Busta’s Bus verse from “Scenario”, Beat Box with the best of them and repeat Outcast’s first single verbatim “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik” and my friends would look at me like “You can’t be serious? Outkast is whack and will not have any longevity in the Hip Hop industry!”  

Every now and then - I check in on my old love and I’m amazed at how much he’s changed.  He went from sharing a message with original musical tracks to mostly auto tuned songs created over a machine.  Maybe I was under the delusion through out our relationship.  Think about it – The Notorious B.I.G’s first number one single “Juicy” used a sample of  “Mtume's "Juicy Fruit",  but, the flip side of this coin was that B.I.G. was able to create some of the of most prolific and  relatable lyrics over his tracks in Hip Hop history.  I’m not sure if our relationship was real or always a fraud – especially after since watching the 2011 BET award. 

I was appalled that I did not know one Female Hip Hop Artist in the Best Female Hip Hop Category.  Diamond, Cymphonique, Lola Monroe and Nicki Minaj?  Of course Nicki Minaj won the award.  Who was the competition?  Speaking of Miss Barbie, when did it become cool to emulate a doll that looks nothing like us in the Hip Hop Industry?  The only reason Miss Minaj has had her 5 minutes of fame is because we currently do not have any strong female mc’s in the game.  Could you imagine Nicki vs. Lyte?   Da Brat?  Somebody please come and take over the reigns!  I can’t wait for the day that Nicki has some real lyric competition to teach this youngin how it should be done!  And the millennial generation calls this Hip Hop?  Get a clue!

I wonder did my mother and other older relatives feel the same way about R&B.  The artist of yesterday knew how to “SANG” and not moan and groan.  They knew how to sing about love and sex that allowed you to use your imagination that allowed to listeners to go back to a past relationship or want to create a new memory.  Today’s artists leave nothing to the imagination.  The romance and positive messages in R&B are gone.

As I watch Patti LaBelle being honored for BET’s Life Time Achievement award, I was thankful and sad at the same time.  I was thankful that I’ve gotten a chance to hear real Black Music and sad that my children will not.  The originality and imagination of our music that once imitated and sometimes duplicated is gone.  As for me, I bid farewell to my old love and hope that for their next mate – they remain faithful to their purpose and true to their roots.

To Hip Hop – May he Rest in Peace.

Ayana Thomas is a 37 year old African American who was born and raised in Bedford Stuyvesant, Brooklyn. She’s a graduate from SUNY Morrisville where she studied Journalism. She also attended SUNY Oswego where she studied Communications. She enjoys photography, traveling, reading, politics and beginning to embracing a talent she has been running from for years – writing.