This Is Why Hip-Hop Is Going to Lose Its Power →

The history of jazz illustrates his point best. Jazz used to be a radical and predominantly black art form, in the same way hip-hop has been for years. When jazz first emerged in New York in the early 1900s, critics were taken aback by its bold new sounds and violent rhythmic feel. Many disparaged it as being “strict rhythm without melody,” a critique eerily similar to many of hip-hop’s own early critiques. Critics argued that black music encouraged listeners to adopt loose moral codes, to commit rape and engage in violence. In 1921, Anne Shaw Faulkner asked poetically (and phonetically), ‘Does Jazz Put the Sin in Syncopation?’ “


history repeats itself.