Vincent Johnson
      Staff Writer

My first hip-hop memory is of riding in the back of my pop’s Cadillac, listening to “So Fresh, So Clean,” by Outkast. The year was 1998: I was four years old and hip-hop radio had not yet devolved into the exhaustingly repetitive, regurgitation of soundscapes that it is today.

It was a time when radio would play Mobb Deep one minute, Bone Thugs, the second and Outkast the third. It was a time when you didn’t get noticed by cloning someone else’s style, and there was no strategic formula that artists employed to create songs that would receive airplay. Success was achieved through innovation, creativity and most of all, great fucking music. But I digress.

“So Fresh, So Clean” was the first song that I ever remember flowing through my body. The snares would electrify my bones, while the bass beat against my chest. I remember struggling to rap along to Big Boi and Andre 3000’s intricate flows. And even though I struggled, it was like a high to feel at one with the music. It would engulf me. At four years old, I couldn’t yet fathom the protest and urgency of hip-hop music. As a young black boy, I had no idea what the songs meant to my community and my culture. I just knew I loved the energy, but as I grew older, I would eventually be forced to understand the power of hip-hop.

Aside from hip-hop being the music that fuels our parties and soundtracks our lives, hip-hop is also the poetry and the literature that allows black people to speak our uncensored truth. Over the decades, mainstream America has struggled to come to grips with that reality.

In the beginning, they simply tried to destroy it. When NWA was dropping scathing protest records like “Fuck Tha Police,” the FBI tried and failed to block them. They attempted censorship, labeling through Parental Advisory stickers and even tried to create the notion that hip-hop music had some adverse effect on children.

The famous debate between Cam’ron, Damon Dash and Bill O’Reilly is a huge example of this. But every weak-hearted attempt to undermine the music that has become the lifeblood of the black community has failed miserably. Today, the children of the same people who tried to discredit black music are in love with the style. And even though they can’t relate to it, they are powerless to resist the seduction.

Where one generation tried annihilating the culture, their sons and daughters are trying to mimic it and assimilate into it. Some see this as cultural appropriation, while others see it as cultural embrace. Personally I think it can be either one, depending on who, what and how. Ultimately, I think we have to chalk it up to the immense power, influence and appeal of the culture.

At its root, hip-hop music is a result of the oppression that black Americans have faced for centuries. It creates the canvas on which we paint our pain, anger, trauma and protest, while also providing the soundscape to which we drive, dance and party. In a sense, it is omnipotent. Personal and reflective, yet outspoken and critical, silly and carefree, yet conscious and calculated, it contains a versatility that is unmatched by any other musical genre in the history of the world.

The same artists with songs that reek of arrogance and braggadocio also have songs that illustrate their past depression and lack of confidence. The same albums that feature narratives of violence, death and destruction in the inner city, also feature sweet, vulnerable and heart-warming love poems. Hip-hop has been accused of promoting, glorifying and celebrating everything from violence and drug dealing, to drug use, promiscuity and prostitution.

But what those accusers refuse to understand is that more than any other musical genre, hip-hop is honest. It is raw, genuine and unapologetic. It is uncompromising, and unyielding. It is true journalism. No other genre is expected to comment on social issues to the same degree as hip-hop, and that is for good reason. No other genre is able or willing to comment on social issues to the same degree as hip-hop. No other genre can match “The Power of Hip-Hop.”