I received an email yesterday from a young, intelligent and passionate political activist in the DC area who, like many of us, is enraged over mainstream media’s misrepresentation of hip-hop. In her own words …

“Most educated blacks don’t want to see the market saturated with exclusively derogatory and ignorant rap.  We’re smarter than this!  We’re more conscious than this!  We deserve to have our work properly represented!  There are bigger issues than sex and bling!  It’s time to educate our shame the corporations and white listeners who are allowing this to be mainstream.  Change will happen but not without leadership.”

The young activist then shared her idea of boycotting Viacom, the American media conglomerate that owns such popular cable channels as MTV and BET, and its advertisers until they include a more accurate and positive representation of hip-hop music and culture. 

Her plan is to …

“… pull together black fraternities and sororities, churches, political organizations, artists, and politicians around the country to spread the word about this boycott with the help of like-minded individuals who are ready to see the change and passionate about bringing the change to fruition.”

I was quite impressed by this letter, and agree with any attempts the hip-hop community would take to boycott Viacom and its advertisers, which many of us already do by refusing to watch their programs or buy their merchandise. However, I was concerned with the apparent view that the misrepresentation of hip-hop in the mainstream is a problem that is only relevant to the black community, and thus any efforts to “take back the music” would revolve only around this community.

I do agree that our media outlets provide less than accurate representation of hip-hop music and culture. However, I do not feel that this is racially-based. If there’s anything I’ve learned from Hip-Hop Linguistics, it’s that hip-hop is a way of life for people everywhere, regardless of race, ethnicity or nationality. Hip-hop culture extends way past the black community, into cities and towns all over the world. When the media provides its one-sided view of hip-hop, it affects hip-hoppers of all walks of life … and therefore everyone should have the opportunity to be involved in the struggle to take it back.

From my perspective, the ideas, values and consciousness of the hip-hop generation are directly decedent from those of the civil rights movement. Therefore, to view the misrepresentation of hip-hop culture in the mainstream as something that effects only the black community serves to alienate a big part of the hip-hop community.

In order for the hip-hop community to produce change while sharing its heightened levels of awareness and consciousness with the world, we must be able to move beyond petty differences such as race, sex, class, ethnicity or nationality. These distinctions will only prevent us from moving forward. Instead of viewing this as a problem for just the black community, we should recognize that it effects everyone who lives within the ideology of hip-hop culture all over the world.