Hip-hop Gives Peace a Chance
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During its years-long hold on the charts, moralists have criticized gangsta rap for promoting violence, but artistically speaking it has a bigger problem: The gangstas are wallowing in a creative tar pit, a profusion of sound-alike one-hit wonders (stars like Tupac Shakur and Bone Thugs-n-Harmony excepted) who are still treading territory Dr. Dre covered three years ago. This sorry condition has been boldly underscored in recent months by what’s starting to look like the second coming of positive hip-hop: The second Fugees album, The Score, has sold more than four million copies since its release early in the year. Busta Rhymes has a gold record thanks largely to the off-kilter hit “Woo Hah!! Got You All in Check,” a flashback to amiable old-school braggadocio. And on Nas’s second album, It Is Written, he pays lip service to casual violence but struggles against getting sucked into it. It Is Written held the number-one spot on Billboard’s album chart for a month, until it was knocked down last week by Beats, Rhymes, and Life, the new album from A Tribe Called Quest.
Positivity has reclaimed the charts, but this time around it’s tempered by the harsh realities of urban life. It’s a positivity that doesn’t ignore hip-hop’s core audience. Tribe’s “Keep It Moving” applies a balm to the tense east-versus-west rivalry. “Jam” and “Crew” sketch unsentimental slices of ghetto life. “Phony Rappers” disses MCs with nothing to say, and “Get a Hold” recommends a life plan: “The brother well-prepared is the brother who will start.” But it’s as much the grooves–lean and mean, particularly compared to Tribe’s stab at sonic expansion on 1993’s Midnight Marauders–that helps the group maintain its street cred.
“As long as it stays like this,” says Phife, “I think it can keep going for years.”
