Questlove of the Roots is writing a six part weekly series of essays for Vulture.com on the history of Hip Hop and its relation to Black America. The first essay entitled “When the People Cheer: How Hip Hop Failed Black America” begins with the claim: “Hip Hop has taken over black music.” He then goes on to discuss how Hip Hop has come to dominate over other musical genres. He argues that Hip Hop used to be “just a piece of the pie” but that it has become like the Exxon Valdez, “It spilled and spread. So what if hip-hop, which was once a form of upstart black-folk music, came to dominate the modern world? Isn’t that a good thing?”
While it may seem like a “good thing” on the surface, Questlove argues that “Once hip-hop culture is ubiquitous, it is also invisible. Once it’s everywhere, it is nowhere.”
Read the entire series of Questlove’s essays on Hip Hop at Vulture.com.
