Stop Blaming Hip Hop.

Hip Hop is dead, but it’s still apparently to blame for everything wrong in America . Or so you would think if you read any of the current news about it.

A recent article in Time noted the decline in CD sales and practically wrote rap’s obituary suggesting that fans and moguls alike are tired of its language. Of course the author doesn’t mention that the content of popular music has always been controversial, and criticizing rap lyrics is nothing new.

But it sure seems trendy lately. Immediately after Imus dropped his racist and sexist comments on the radio, he and others made the argument that rappers used similar language, and that somehow their words excused or explained Imus’ behavior. That sure sounds a lot like “he did it first! Blame rap not me!” And now the Hip Hop community is being told it needs to take responsibility for its words. Some may be wondering how we skipped telling Imus and other talk radio hosts the same thing. The shock jock was fired and forgotten, and then blame was shifted to rap for the issues surrounding racism and sexism.

Interestingly, Hip Hop is the only artistic community of its size stepping up and taking responsibility for many of these cultural problems. Leaders such as Russell Simmons argue that Hip Hop needs to clean up, and some are volunteering to do so, including Chamillionaire and Master P. And of course if you listen to artists such as Common and Talib Kweli, you know that true Hip Hop music has a long tradition of social consciousness and commentary.

But you wouldn’t know that watching BET or listening to the radio. Executives there choose to play the more misogynistic and gun-glorifying rap, disregarding intelligent Hip Hop because they think their audience won’t get it. In the Time article, Q-Tip notes that “…there are different strains of hip-hop, but record companies aren’t set up to sell these different strains. They aren’t set up to do anything more of a mature sort of hip-hop.”

So why don’t we blame them? When will we argue that the corporate community needs to take responsibility for its foul behavior?

Maybe it’s because Hip Hop is the only style of music that’s also considered a community, and a large on at that, making it an easy target for some journalists, executives and politicians looking for someone or something to blame.

But it’s a little more complex than that, isn’t it? Because music doesn’t create culture, the culture creates its music. And people, all people, create the culture. Those of us who allowed Don Imus to have a career for all those years are just as responsible for racism and misogyny as those of us who rap about money, hoes, rims, and the N-word, maybe more so.

Of course that doesn’t mean Hip Hop shouldn’t take responsibility. In fact, the impetus to lift up our communities may be even greater despite the challenges we face in mainstream media and politics. Because we know better. We know we have the ability to inspire change. But we must continue to promote change in our media and government as well as our own communities and neighborhoods. We have to challenge others to step up and take responsibility, and we can start by setting the example. We can start with a positive message. We can start with ourselves. But we must expect that same change in others, and hold them responsible as well.

Since I started writing this many have been rushing to blame Hip Hop for Michael Vick’s terrible crimes (more on that here). It’s just ludicrous to blame the Hip Hop community for what a football player did, particularly without even exploring potential issues within the culture of football. One could argue this is because DMX was recently accused of a similar crime, but in reality these accusations began before DMX was even arrested. And it should be mentioned that Just Blaze, who is arguably much more influential in Hip Hop than DMX, was one of the first to condemn Vick. Hip Hop doesn’t support his actions and never did. Regardless of the time line though or who supports whom, we need to ask some real questions: What’s really wrong in American culture? What about the links between violence, racism and misogyny to poverty and lack of education? And why aren’t we fighting government policies that leave so many people poor and their schools unfunded? We have to stop blaming Hip Hop, and start looking at the real cultural challenges.