80'S BABIES (PART 3 OF 3)

The 80's was a decade that made our youth mature quicker than they should have. By the end of the 80's many potential leaders became followers of deadly habits. Money was easily made by young kids becoming dope runners. Receiving an education was a joke because ways to make tax free money came easy and consequences for crimes were rarely considered (Hence the prison population today). Inner city gangs stretched out further than eyes could see. Many of our youth were convinced that these gangs provided a family for youth that felt abandoned. Good intentions don't always result in good actions. All inner city gangs intended to help bring in and show love to young brothers and sisters that felt lost or neglected.

The Black Panther party from the 60's to the 80's was a large positive driving force in the "Black" communtiy for guidance and leadership of our youth for quite some time (on the West Coast mainly).

The bloods and Crips (started much like the black panther party) had intentions to help inner city youth to find guidance within their community but our youth began to see gangs as a means to run their mouth and get revenge on whoever made them mad. Gangs became an outlet for protection from "outsiders" and a way for an individual to build a reputation to be FEARED.

The urge for young street soliders to kill and die for a cause was a sad "trend" that falsely lead out youth even today to kill and die just because. Karl Marx, was a well known ideologist and wrote that those who are in poverty suffer from "false consciousness" that is, the poor remain content in there ways and lifestyle because they are convinced by "superiors" that everything is fine and dandy and the poor are where God wants them to be.

A wool has been thrown over the eyes of America for quite some time, discouraging our youth to believe they are hopeless. This wool is money, crack, meth, gangs, false media, porn, political corruption, war, religion, politics and many other methods to madness you can think of.

"White America" feared that this "negative culture" called hip hop would one day be more influential than our federal government would like to see. However the creation and emergence of the hip hop has turned out to be the reason Americans are loved around the globe. I guarantee you go anywhere in the world and blast 2pac or Biggy over a loud sound system you will get attention and love by the people of that community, regardless if you speak there language or not. The Hip Hop culture has become a universal art form(s) language and entity.

How do you kill a dream? How do you kill a thought? How do you stop a thriving inner city community that has the potential to influence the masses through hip hop? It's like asking how do you stop Jesus the Christ from getting on the cross? You can't.

I feel the 80's brought forth a new age of creativity, innovation and ingenuity to the American culture as well as bringing forth a new age of apathy and arrogance.

My theorgy is that considering the spirit of the hip hop culture ( I believe) was born during the civl right's movements' and came for age in the 80's, that the children raised in these times (1970's to 1990) will be the leaders to guide America into a higher movements of light of thought and action. Meaning our young adults and teens now, will be the one's we look to in order to answer to what we once considered unanswerable questions (occult or non-occult).

This "Milleninnium generation" is not as lazy and unambitious as we appear to be. We are like a dormant volcano that people view as inactive but, we are due for an eruption any moment.

End of Chapter One

Jonathan Gray

80'S BABIES (PART 2 OF 3)

Born and raised the ghetto's of America, this young, but wise spirit of the hip hop culture inspired and motivated poor, depressed people to get up, dance, smile, rap, spin records, beatbox and even graffiti the city with divine colors and pictures that also included messages of enlightenment. As you can see, hip hop was a rebel, but a rebel with a cause and purpose. spirit embedded in the inner city that would "rather live for a cause than to die just because." The 80's was a very dynamic decade.

The roots of hip hop run deep. I believe Christ himself "rapped" with his disciples, needless to say rap music is poverty's poetry spoken over instruments telling anyone willing to listen, stories of struggle, experience, sometimes funny, sometimes, serious. But the late 80's became the stepping ground for "gangsta" rap music. This lead to the shift in hip hop's consciousness. In other words, hip hop was nolonger an innocent rebellous teen, but a young adult.

The importation of cocaine was heavier than ever and with the addition of a few ingredients you could be smoking it (crack). The crack epidemic flooded inner city streets and eventually reached the doorsteps of dorm rooms and the children of suburbia. Just two years before crack reached it's peak (84) many, will agree that the inner city leaders and programs were making a lot of progress and school enrollment in the inner city was at a high. When crack hit, most people in the city (any urban city in America) were just high.

Hip Hop was now a young adult learning to apply it's creative energy towards something that would reach out to the inner citie's consumed by "Crack."

The good side of hip hop shined bright during this time period creating positive anti-drug music and establishing after school programs to keep the young and curious off the streets. But if there is a good side to hip hop there is a bad side. I won't go into conspiracies of the CIA trafficking drugs directly into specific urban areas of America; I will say this drug provoked many young people that were doing positive things in there community to turn on that same community that they onced loved.

During the late 1980's the hip hop culture stood up with authority and aritst from all over the world began to evolve, telling stories in a more artistic, aggressive manner. Within hip hop, b-boy's and b-girls' danced harder and sharper. Mc's where rapping smarter, quicker and with more substance. Beat's got tougher and louder and most major cities witnessed a dramatic increase of spray painted artwork on larger scale structure. Even the messages and murals painted by "bombers" contained more traces of communtiy concern and messages of youth outreach. "Close the crack house down" was the messages many rappers released during this time period (mid to late 80's)

However, hip hop was one with the people of the ghetto, that meant it represented not only the good (as I mentioned above), but the bad and ugly too. Hip hop is now embedded in the hearts of stick up kids, drug dealers, drug addicts, king pins, and assassins. Every man has a story right? Hip hop provided a way to express your testimony and allow your story to be heard in was what originally a non-violent manner (when it was young).

Now everyone who embraced hip hop began to see the impact it had on the community and the amount of power and influence someone can attain by claiming to be apart of hip hop, at this point hip hop became a hott marketable item. The smell of power, money, popularity and possiblity was in the air for many confident hip hop artist (when I say artist I mean dancers, rappers and Dj's mainly).

The smell of money and contractual power made way for record labels and movie companies to buy artist's and exploit their talent (crooked investors). This marked the the emergence of the contractual slave within hip hop. Many artist just wanted a way out of poverty and accepted anything that had dollar signs on it (message to the reader: read everything before you sign it, you may be giving up more than you thought).

The media tried to put this God given culture to sleep in the late 80's claiming that "it's just a fad" in headlines across America. Obviously the attempt to kill hip hop through media failed.

80'S BABIES (CHAPTER 1) 1 of 3 entries

"To engage in a serious discussion of race in America we must begin not with the problems of black people but with the flaws of American society--flaws rooted in historic inequalities and longstanding cultural stereo-types. How we set up the terms for discussing racial issues shapes our perception and response to these issues."

~Cornell West "Race Matters"

80's Babies

In order to figure out how to define the new spirit that lingers over America, we first have to see when that wise spirit of freedom fighting began transforming. I believe 1979 marked the end of an era and ushered in a new era of creative enlightenment. Technology began evolving faster and soon would prove highly useful for the future of composers and producers (e.g. computers, samplers and emerging multitrack recording devices...).

Disco was slowly slipping down the drain while in New York City a new culture would soon emerge with a loud roar and claim it's rightful spot in history books forever. The Hip Hop culture was not well accepted by a majority of the citizens outside of the urban community, even some elders in the urban community didn't agree with the swagger the teens walked with back then.

We would quickly see the elements of the hip hop culture gravitate towards suburban areas but not before the media (4tht branch of the government) could attempt to destroy this alien culture that was so foreign to the masses. It is said that you fear what you don't know and fear causes strong animosity, unless you confront what you fear, attempt to understand what you fear and from there, either embrace or erase it (so to speak).

Hip Hop was a novelty culture that told stories of struggles and joy within society by expressing emotions through the, four elements which are, breakdancing, rapping, Dj'ing and graffitti. It took groups of geniues to nurture and care for this new way of living and breathing called hip hop. This was the era of the "freshest kids."

In the late 60's a Dj by the name of Kool Herc, also known as the father of Hip Hop brought something to Bronx as well as America that was unprecendented. Spinning records and pumping up the party goers on a microphone over a loud sound system (Like that of a "Rocker" in Jamaica) and partying all night long at 1520 Sedgewick Ave. Curiosity began to rise and Kool Herc's style of Djing would soon be that spark launched a new movement in motion. Soon, certain individuals would start dancing in a manner that was new, intense and amazing. This was the birth of " Breakin" or break dancing. Break dancing is the epitome of Hip Hop. I believe it is the physical manifestation for a definition of hip hop. At that time many teens put their mind, body and soul into being a b-boy or b-girl, and the community in which it originated responded in such a positive, uplifting manner.

If you ever wondered where turning your hat backwards or putting one pant leg up came from? Give thanks to the Rock Steady Crew, LA breakers, New York City breakers, B-boy batch, Floormasters and so many more for their divine creativity. B-boy's and b-girls invented new styles and trends (unknowingly) that are followed by today's youth more than ever.