For the Love of Art

“Art is the desire of a man to express himself, to record the reactions of his personality to the world he lives in.”
--Amy Lowell--

“Art is a collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better.”
--Andre Gide--

“Let each man exercise the art he knows.”
--Aristophanes--

“Art is born of the observation and investigation of nature.”
--Cicero--

“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
--G. K. Chesterton--

Don Imus started a firestorm of controversy weeks ago when he made the disrespectful statements about the Rutgers Women’s Basketball Team. This controversy also forced many of “us” within our community to take a long and hard look at the language that is used in some of the music that comes from our community. This reflection has prompted a great deal of debate about rap and hip hop music. I would like to add my little spin on the subject.

“Rap imitates life.” That is a quote about rap music that I heard about ten years ago. This quote meant that some times the lyrics of a song may seem strong but it only reflects life, therefore we should judge the music by the message within the music as opposed to just the words used to convey the message. That was back when diversity still existed within rap music and music that was influenced by rap, which is how I define hip hop music. However, I am not so sure that diversity is as prevalent in rap and hip hop music today, which leads to the purpose of this article. I want to hear from you. Is there any integrity left in rap and hip hop music today?

My answer is yes, but not enough. As far as I am concerned rap and hip hop music have lost much but not all of its integrity. This did not happen over night. It has been building for years. Rap and hip hop music are art forms like any other forms of music. It is poetry put to rhythm and beats. Like any good poetry, rap and/or hip hop music that has integrity picks an idea, a thought, and/or a reality out of a moment in time and shares it through the eyes of the artist with the force of emotion that best accompanies the concept. Then there is the commercial stuff.

In America we use sex to sell almost every type of product, idea, or service, so it is not very surprising that music that has been commercialized has become more and more sexually explicit and/or sexually centered over the years. That is the classic struggle that a real artist must face; produce your music from your heart or make something that sells. Unfortunately it appears that degrading, dehumanizing, and disrespecting women and men routinely go hand in hand with selling music through the use of images of sex. It is easy to sell images of women as sexual toys to be played with and it is also easy to sell images of men as ATM machines that only need their sexually buttons pushed in order to spew wads of cash. It is probably not the intention of the marketing departments to use music as a medium of dehumanizing men and women, but nonetheless that is the result.

The commercial stuff is written to appeal to the base superficial emotions of humanity. And like the emotions that it appeals to, the music is quick, easy, and predictable. I would not go as far to say that it is not music, but I would be quick to point out that music of that kind is not art. The minute that an “artist” goes from making music that “imitates life” to sounds that are solely designed to sell, that “artist” has sold out their calling. The music they create has no integrity. That to me is what is ailing much of the rap and hip hop music that we hear and that is marketed to our children and to us.

Yet, there is a solution to this situation. We can stop buying it. Music that is only written to sell, but does not sell with no longer be written. I do not want anyone to be confused about what I am trying to convey. As long as there are people out there that think of women as the H or B or C word, then there will be people that will buy the commercial music. However, the more we change our minds, ears, and hearts about what we want and expect from music the less we will desire that type of music. The more we as a community make art profitable, the more artful music will be produced that reflects the entire spectrum of thoughts, emotions, and challenges that we face everyday from a broad perspective. And then finally we will have more art in our life.