The biggest problem with hip-hop, according to KRS-One
KRS-One has never been afraid of letting his thoughts be known about a range of different subjects. But the legendary rapper is especially eloquent when it comes to the nature of hip-hop itself—even when he’s criticising it.
KRS-One was always sensitive to the ways in which people conflated the terms “hip-hop” and “rap.” He understood these two words to be distinct from one another, and he even wrote a song explaining the difference.
On the track ‘Hip Hop Vs Rap,’ released in 1993, KRS-One insists, “Rap is something you do, hip-hop is something you live.” What he meant is that rap is an act, and it forms only one part of the wider culture of hip-hop. Hip-hop itself, meanwhile, is a lifestyle. It’s a way of being.
It really annoyed KRS when people got that wrong, and he felt the implications of the misunderstanding were actually quite significant. When asked in an interview in 2001 what his biggest issue with the era’s hip-hop culture was, he brought up this confusion again.
Hip-hop’s biggest problem, he said, was the “fact that everyone believes that all of hip-hop is rap music, and that, when you say ‘hip-hop,’ it’s synonymous with rap. That when you say ‘hip-hop,’ you should be thinking about breakdancing, graffiti art, or MCing—which is the proper name for rap—DJing, beat-boxing, language, fashion, knowledge, trade.”
Hip-hop, as he made clear in his 1993 song, is so much bigger than just rap. “I think that hip-hop should be spelled with a capital ‘H,’” he said, “and as one word.”
The conflation of “rap” and “hip-hop,” KRS seemed to imply, allowed it to be more easily commercialised and weakened. This is what he viewed as its biggest issue during the early 2000s, when he was giving that interview.
“It’s the name of our culture,” he said, “and it’s the name of our identity and consciousness. I think hip-hop is not a product, but a culture. I think rap is a product, but when hip-hop becomes a product, that’s slavery, because you’re talking about people’s souls. To me, that’s the biggest problem.”
KRS-One was clearly unsettled by hip-hop’s commercial turn. But, even as he fretted about its issues, he also went on to express what makes it so great. “Hip-hop has united all races,” he said. “Hip-hop has formed a platform for all people, religions, and occupations to meet on something. We all have a platform to meet on now, due to hip-hop. That, to me, is beyond music. That is just a brilliant, brilliant thing.”