THOUGHTS: Hip-Hop as a Tool

The first time I ever heard Hip-Hop my head exploded.  I couldn't get enough.  My neighbors had Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff's "He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper" aaaaaaaand Beastie's "License to Ill".  I would hang out down there and play those tapes back to back to back.  Hip-Hop was the rebel soundtrack to my nice, white, safe life.

I always saw this music as a tool to get stuff done.  It was like a hammer that smashed everything as I knew it.  And I carried around this hammer all damn day.  It was always by my side.  Everyone made fun of my hammer and wondered why a white kid from the burbs would carry such a thing.  It only made me get a bigger hammer and swing it more often.  It's not something everyone can carry comfortably.  They didn't make em light and easy to hold in the early nineties.  But it didn't take long for a couple people to get one too.  They got tired of making fun of me and saw how fun it was to smash stuff.

Fast forward to the end of high-school and everyone has a hammer.  Every guy, every girl.  Every commercial, every show.  It was a little sickening.  My hammer looked cool still, but it wasn't my thing any more.  It was everyone's thing.  Oh well