This Ol' Dirty Bastard: How I Came to Terms with My Hip-Hop Roots

I am a hip-hop amateur. A poser, a posturer, a suburbanite whose closest interaction with the underground music industry consists of accidentally downloading an MP3 from a non-mainstream artist. So when called on to "check out the hip-hop conference that's happening this weekend," I'm intimidated not just a little bit. Approaching Emerson Hall, licking the remnants of fried dough from my fingers, my worst fears are confirmed. Blocking the front door is a group of dreadlocked combatants--they are speaking in elevated tones and circling each other warily.

"When I was growing up, everyone's daddy was a pimp, everyone's momma was a ho--and you're going to tell me that that's not real?" The question freezes me at the foot of the staircase. Remembering the side entrance, I hurry past, staring intently at my toes the whole way. As I approach the thankfully unoccupied door, I try to dredge up what little knowledge of hip-hop culture I have. It's Nothing but a G-Thang. G-Funk--step to this, I dare you. Wu-Tang Clan ain't nuthin to fuck wit'. Inter- galacticplanetary-intergalactic... How does the rest go? I tuck my Abercrombie T-shirt into my Gap denim shorts and walk through the door.

As an unregistered participant of the conference, I wander around a bit unsure of where to go. Under the guise of a student who left his notebook in one of the classrooms, I make my way to the lecture hall at the end of the building and sit down to take in the panel discussion that is already in session. Ostensibly a debate about artists crossing over from the underground music scene to the realm of record labels and music videos, it seems to have degenerated into a shouting contest--a competition of who can declare their world-view the most self-righteously and at the highest volume.

"Everyone--whether they are poor or whatever, wants something more. If you need to get a haircut in order to get a job or an interview, you get that haircut or your ass starves. If you need to sacrifice time with your family in order to pay the bills, you give up that time or your ass is sitting in the dark. Now all these artists are trying to do is get that something more."

Later: "I am not going to be judging Mase for what he's done when his little sister didn't have a meal to eat before he got big."

The next topic, feminism in hip-hop, elicits a similar sort of discourse: "Now I've been tryin' to be polite and waiting my turn, but now I gotta stand up and speak my piece as an individual. Because that's all women like Foxy Brown and L'il Kim are trying to do, express themselves as individuals. And who are you to say they can't show all of themselves? You yourself have to take what you will from them and be responsible for your own self. All-in-one, you know what I'm talking about? [I didn't.] Because I'm going to look at their pie and take pieces of it and add it to my own pie. And then I'm going to eat. And I'll pass that on to my neighbor, and he's going to eat."

Thoroughly disenchanted by this representation of hip-hop culture, and feeling utterly out of place, I decline to participate in the standing ovation given to the conference's keynote speaker, KRS-1. Introduced as "a manifestation of what this conference is all about," I expect him to launch into a self-congratulatory treatise about looking out for KRS-1 and eating pies. Instead, he delivers what I find to be one of the more intriguing lectures I can remember hearing at Harvard.

Voice strained from back-to-back concerts, KRS-1 outlines the basic elements of hip-hop, from DJ-ing (the study of technology), to MC-ing (the study of divine speech), to graffiti art (the study of light, color and dimension). Initially wary of these seemingly euphemistic definitions, I am gradually won over by the speaker's authenticity and enthusiasm. I learn the history of the turntable, how the first DJ was a certified electrician combing NYC junkyards for spare parts. I learn about beatboxing, the art of using one's body as an instrument.

"And how do you express yourself, in the face of nothing?"

The crowd nods and murmurs their soulful agreement. Minutes ago I might have thought to myself, "yeah, hallelujah" in sarcastic response. Now I nearly blurt it out for real. KRS-1 preaches on:

"For 2,000 years we've had Christians reading the word of God. But what these people have to do, and what hip-hop strives to do, is to eliminate the distance. You can't read the word of God, you can't follow it, you have to be it...In the past, it was enough to just identify with hip-hop culture, you could say, `Yeah, I'm down with hip-hop.' If we do that now, if we don't eliminate that distance, hip-hop is lost. You have to be hip-hop, you have to take that responsibility and recognize that your actions reflect on hip-hop culture. You don't want to shame hip-hop by your actions. Likewise, you take the responsibility to shape what hip-hop is, because you know that what people think about hip-hop, they think about you."

After his closing remarks, I rise with the rest of the crowd to applaud. The next panel on social responsibility is less inspiring--when asked if there exists a unifying philosophy behind hip-hop, one record company executive states that "the one thing that I think every artist can agree on is the desire for artists to own their own masters." Rather than ruin my newfound zeal for hip-hop, I tune out and sift through the ideas in KRS-1's keynote address.

I am hip-hop, I think. More so than the outspoken man in the front with the one pant leg rolled up, more so than the white kid in camouflage pants and sideways cap. These people are trying to be like hip-hop, I say to myself. I simply am. If KRS-1 claims that one can "be hip-hop, standing in line at the supermarket," why can't I be hip-hop while concentrating in C.S.? Don't I listen to Cypress Hill's "Hits From the Bong" in the Science Center terminal room? Don't I fight for my right to party? I smile as I recall the wealthy, cookie-cutter suburb of New York City where I grew up. Maybe I'm not quite ready to break out the turntables and drop rhymes like my childhood in a multi-acre, tree-lined estate compels me to. But at least my relationship with hip-hop goes beyond a fondness for the Fat Boys. Because when I was growing up, everyone's father was a lawyer, and everyone's mother was a real estate agent. And you're going to tell me that that's not real?