(ThyBlackMan.com) Hip Hop is life, power, and expression. Hip Hop transcends race, class and cultures. It has been the voice for those who have been marginalized and oppressed. It has also been a vehicle for economic self-sufficiency and collective survival. Today, Hip Hop is a multi-billion dollar industry.
However, over the years it has lost its freshness and originality. The art form used to embody beauty, pride and self-respect. Artists like KRS-ONE, PUBLIC ENEMY, TUPAC, RAKIM, AND RUN DMC have enriched the lives of many people.
Presently, the Rap music culture is in a state of artistic and spiritual paralysis. Rap music has become shallow and superficial and it resonates with greed, hubris, vanity and violence. The genre is now a shadow of its former self. In Spike Lee’s film “Bamboozled,” the rappers of today are 
depicted as being modern day minstrels. In many ways, Mr. Lee is correct. Many rappers have sacrificed their moral and artistic integrity in order to chase the illusion known as “The American Dream.”
As a result, the Hip Hop culture has become a rebel against its own existence by allowing itself to be controlled and defined by corporate powers, which profit enormously at the expense of the destruction of the Black male image. The corporate stranglehold on Hip Hop is slowly causing its demise. Sadly, quite a few Rap artists have sold out their souls and their culture in exchange for uncertain riches.
In fact, so called “gangsta rap” continues to promote and glorify the most negative and heinous aspects of the ghetto without any positive balances. The images of gangsta rap feed into the racist propaganda notion that Black males have the propensity to commit crime. In 1915, a movie entitled “Birth of a Nation,” by D.W. Griffith depicted the Black male as being an ignorant, lazy, over-sexed, buffoonish thug.
Unfortunately, Hip Hop has internalized the many negative generalizations which America has created about Blacks. The internalization of these negative stereotypes manifests itself in the forms of self hatred and Black on Black violence. This self hatred can be heard and witnessed in the hedonistic, materialistic, misogynistic, and violent rap lyrics of today.
Currently, many rap songs and videos are punctuated with hyperbolic expressions of excessiveness. Moreover, the relentless images of thugs, gangstas, playas, bitches, and ho’s are programming the youth to self destruct. What rappers need to understand is that their words are powerful instruments. Words have been the catalysts for revolutions.
LIFE AND DEATH ARE IN THE POWER OF THE TONGUE! Hip Hop artists are in the unique position to influence others with their words. They should use their lyrics to elevate, inform and inspire the youth, instead of constantly focusing on the demoralizing aspects of human nature. Hip Hop must get back to its essence and its roots, while maintaining its cutting edge.—-
Written By Jesse Atkinson