The levels of the hip hop genre, forever broken down

It has come to my attention that some people don’t realize that there is actually a difference between hip hop music and rap music. In both genres the artists are, in fact, rapping. However, hip hop Artists are more poetic than rappers. Hip hop Artists would include people such as Jay-Z, Biggie, Tupac, Nas, Outkast, Big K.R.I.T., J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, etc.. Rappers are people such as Waka Flocka, Gucci Mane, Webbie, French Montana, Chief Keef, etc. Get it? For those that get it, you can either stop reading or enjoy this article. For those that don’t get it, I’ll dig deeper into it. There have been too many instances where I’ve had to explain to older family members the differences between the two. To be quite honest, I get insulted when someone asks me why I’m listening to “that damn rap music” or how my “rap career” is going. I decided to write this article to demonstrate this distinct difference to music lovers across the world. Ok, maybe not the world, but you get where I’m going. Where to start?

People often ask me why I say that I’m a hip hop Artist as opposed to simply saying that I’m a rapper. The reason is because I’m NOT a rapper and I refuse to be associated with that kind of music.There’s a distinct difference between the two. Hip hop is damn near religious. It’s religious in the sense that hip hop heads attend concerts like Christians would attend a Sunday morning church sermon. We look at these people (Artists) as if they’re “higher” than us and as if they have a higher truth that we haven’t tapped into yet. Hip hop is like that feeling that you get when you’ve been thinking about somebody that you lost contact with for years and one random, glorious day they decided to call you. Hip hop is the bridge that connects our parents’ music to our music. Hip hop is a rarity. Hip hop is poetry laced over a hypnotic beat that sticks to the walls inside of our mind. Hip hop is a drug, an aid, and a stimulant. Hip hop is underground storytelling and the closest thing we have to the African griots before us. Hip hop is the way you felt when you heard Tupac/Biggie for the first time and the emptiness you felt when they both departed us. Hip hop lives in our hearts, hip hop is forever, and hip hop is about elevating the soul and the mind. Hip hop, well for me, is life.

Rap is the complete opposite of the beauty that hip hop embodies. If music were a family, rap would be the cousin of hip hop that nobody ever invites to the reunion. Rap music is poisonous to the black community. More often than not, it encompasses and glorifies black on black violence, drug dealing, gangbanging, and everything else that young black males attempt to emulate. Now, don’t be confused. There ARE plenty of hip hop Artists that talk about these topics in their music, but most times they don’t GLORIFY them. Rap doesn’t teach us anything, it dumbs down those who are too simple-minded to realize that most of it is falsities, and it’s normally how people of other races perceive all African Americans to be. Rap is simply a bad after taste. Do I listen to it sometimes? Of course. It’s my guilty pleasure, but I am also aware of good music and bad music. My listening of rap music doesn’t outweigh my listening of other genres.

All in all, I just want people to realize the differences. Don’t call all hip hop simply rap music and don’t call all rap, hip hop music. They are NOT the same. If you still don’t get it 1) you’re simple minded, 2) you don’t want to see the difference, or 3) you don’t appreciate hip hop culture. Either way it goes, we shouldn’t be associated. Much love and bless.