Hip-hop is love.
After Peter Rosenberg dissed Nicki Minaj‘s song “Starships” as not real hip-hop, people have been talking. A lot of people are wondering, just what is real hip-hop?
Well, real hip-hop is love.
I fell in love with hip-hop as a small kid after hearing LL Cool J’s “Rock The Bells” blasting from my mother’s radio and watching the older kids break dance. Since then, I was hooked!
I practiced pop locking to Run DMC, I crafted the illest bubble letter words all over my notebook, and popped numerous cassette tapes trying to “dub” a song off the radio. Long story short, I’m a hip-hop head and I’ll straight up tell that you real hip-hop is love.
I say love not only because I love the culture, but because if you ask a million people ‘What is love?’ you’ll get a million different answers.
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I believe that real hip-hop is as simple as a dope lyric over a hard beat. Real hip-hop is from the heart, and no matter how hard I try, I could never be able to define what is real hip-hop. No one can.
Hip-hop is in you, me and all of us. Hip-hop is a beat banged out in a stairwell and a group of friends spitting rhymes about the things they know.
Real hip-hop is a white boy who picked up an Eminem CD and decided that he doesn’t want to be an engineer like his pops.
Real hip-hop is endless hours in the studio, only to perform to crowds of 15 people who don’t give a damn what’s being said. They’re just waiting to see the rapper who got three songs in rotation on local radio.
Real hip-hop is also the rapper who did 14 interviews in one hour, while his stylist kept adjusting his iced out chain to make sure it was showing through his Givenchy button up.
One thing I know is that real hip-hop is more than covering yourself up with tattoos, smoking weed, rhyming about drugs and getting shot.
Sure, certain bubblegum extra soft songs make some of us want to holla sometimes and throw your hands up, but if it’s real to them, who are we to judge? Hip-hop is love.
~ Blog Xilla Follow Me On Twitter
Xilla is the Sr. Entertainment Editor for GlobalGrind.com as well as CEO of the number 1 relationship blog BlogXilla.com/M2TB.com. He has been featured in XXL, The Source, Essence, LA Times and is considered one of the premiere bloggers in the industry. Follow him on twitter @BlogXilla
