Album Review: Common's The Dreamer / The Believer

Hip hop music is inherently collaborative. The producer lays the song's foundation by creating the beat, and the MC dances on top of that foundation as he raps. Sometimes a good producer, or a good rapper, is enough to make a hit song. But to take the music to the next level – to create timeless, classic hip hop – producer and MC must operate as true collaborators, each complementing and challenging the other. As T.I. recently said of the slow process of building rapport with Dr. Dre: "Of course we can get together, he got hot beats and I got dope rhymes, so we can always get together and make music… But for people to feel what we're sayin' and for it to sound like a party comin' through your speakers, you gonna have to create some chemistry. So that's what we spent more time doing than anything else, developing that chemistry."

"The Dreamer / The Dreamer" represents a true example of a producer and MC – in this case, No I.D. and Common – operating as creative collaborators, not simply business partners. Two savvy veterans of the music industry and longtime collaborators, No I.D. and Common have put together an album that is both grand in its ambition and intimate in its listening experience. The beats have layers and layers of nuanced, thoughtful sonic levels, and the rhymes subtly explore those beats' rhythmic nooks and crannies.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on "Blue Sky," which opens with a long, anticipatory crescendo. Common enters with energy and precision. Stay Melo like Lala… Ladies go Gaga. The second verse provides a whirlwind tour of Common's ascension from aspiring MC to hip hop mainstay, above average actor, and the president's buddy. The bridge section is where the song truly becomes special. The chorus is followed by a big, bombastic drum fill, and the track takes a turn for the dramatic, the dramatic, and the epic. Common returns with a passion, rapping with a subtly distorted voice: Close my eyes, see things in front of me / I'm gone now – imagine what I'm gonna be.

Before returning to the hook one final time, the song introduces a completely new vocal melody – a late outburst of creativity that recurs throughout the album, most notably on "Celebrate." Out of the beautiful things that life could give me, crazy that I'm the one. Despite its initial optimism, the song has transformed into a stormy, intense, and fervent experience. The sky may be blue, but it is also stormy, and Common and No I.D. explore this turbulence to extraordinary effect.

"Blue Sky" transitions seamlessly – as do nearly all of the songs on "The Dreamer / The Believer" – into "Sweet," Common's so-called diss track apparently directed at singer-rapper Drake. The confrontational aspects of Sweet are fascinating for numerous reasons – a "conscious" rapper picking a fight with a man who mostly just sings about his feelings, Common turning the word "sweet" into an insult, every word Common uttered here – but the song is even more interesting on a musical level. Just like "Blue Sky," the song opens with a long, drawn out crescendo, building anticipation for when the beat finally drops. And when it does, it is something to behold. No I.D. has put together an aggressive, even threatening beat by sampling a woman singing "you look so sweet." The drums pop like a fire cracker. On top of all this, Common actually sounds menacing: Come around my crib – you know where I'm from. And later, defiantly concluding the song: It's over for you – it's over. His voice is sharp and his cadence precise, intense, and relentless.

"Sweet" transitions into "Gold," and suddenly we have ascended from the blue sky into the heavens. The beat features a melody on guitar, complemented by soaring glissandos on the piano and delicate offbeats on the wood block. No I.D. is a master of knowing exactly when to drop the percussive background from his songs, and he does so perfectly here, both during the song's first chorus and especially during its conclusion. Common is so rhythmically and sonically in tune with the beat that he almost fades into the background – another instrument in a warm, angelic beat.

On "Raw (How You Like It)," Common returns to hip hop's roots, using the medium as a platform for telling long-form stories rich in detail and wordplay. Vividly retelling the tale of a night on the town, gone slightly wrong: She ordered Bacardi, getting twisted in the limelight / Seen that ass 'cause I got hindsight. And the memorable climax, in which Common responds to a drunkard's unwelcome advances: "You Hollywood" – nah, [baby] I'm Chicago / So I cracked his head with a motherfuckin' bottle. The beat manages to take two of the most overused sounds in hip hop – the police siren and the blow horn – and use them in an interesting and fresh way. At the end of the song, No I.D. again cuts out the percussion at exactly the right time, revealing the beat's kinetic baseline and soaring vocals.

What Common and No I.D. have done with "The Dreamer / The Believer" is far more than create a consistently entertaining, frequently great album. They have created a rich sonic landscape, with treasures buried throughout its intricate layers of beats and rhymes. The album certainly misses the mark on a handful of tracks, particularly "The Believer," in which John Legend is intolerable and Common is consistently behind the beat. Despite these minor blemishes, however, the album stands as a monumental testimony to all that is possible when producer and MC work together as true partners. This is refined, elegant hip hop, the type of music that is only possible when two longtime collaborators step into the studio one more time.

Jay-Z and Kanye West's "Watch the Throne"

The most impressive aspect of "Watch the Throne," the collaborative album by Jay-Z and Kanye West, is that the project actually happened. When was the last time two of the biggest stars in pop culture shared the mic, not to mention album sales, media attention, and ticket revenue from their upcoming tour? It’s the equivalent of Ke$ha and Katy Perry doing a joint album, or John Mayer and Adam Levine. What seems unfathomable for those artists, Ye and Jay made a reality.

And for that fact alone, the two men deserve tremendous credit. They’ve managed to nurture their longstanding artistic partnership – Kanye has been making beats for Jay-Z for over a decade – despite Kanye’s incredible ascent from ghost producer to full-fledged superstar. Furthermore, Jay-Z and Kanye’s collaboration has helped promote a spirit of teamwork across the entire rap industry.¹

And yet "Watch the Throne" itself is a disappointment, particularly for Kanye. We’ve come to expect more from him. Each of his previous albums, with the possible exception of "Graduation," felt like something we’d never heard before. Each expanded the scope of what hip hop could be. Wait, you can make a number one hit from a Daft Punk sample? Or a Ray Charles impersonation? You can make a hip hop album using nothing but autotune? And you can make the album of the year by probing the depths of the id and featuring Bon Iver?

In contrast to all this, "Watch the Throne" feels like the recycling of old ideas. "Murder to Excellence" is a poor man’s (and woefully out of tune²) "Power". "Lift Off" is a homeless man’s "All of the Lights." "Made in America" is an imitation of "Forever Young." "Otis" feels like it came straight off "The College Dropout." It feels like we’ve heard this album before.

This isn’t to say that the album isn’t listenable. To the contrary, it’s solid, easy, and largely enjoyable, with both rappers in good form lyrically. "Gotta Have It" in particular features memorable banter between Kanye and Jay-Z, and the beat by The Neptunes is an all-timer. And yet, "Watch the Throne" doesn’t challenge us the way we’ve come to expect from a Kanye West album. Call it murder by excellence.

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1. For evidence of this, look no further than Game’s "R.E.D. album," released this past Tuesday. The album manages to feature Southern giants (Rick Ross, Lil Wayne, Young Jeezy, Big Boi), West Coasters (Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, E40), the newcomers (Drake, Tyler the Creator, Wale), and Nelly Furtado.

2. Listen closely to the guitar at the beginning of the song, before the drums enter.

Album Review: Clipse's Hell Hath No Fury

The production on Hell Hath No Fury, the second album from Virginia-based rap duo Clipse, is sparing. Each song features one or two instruments along with a drum machine, and the same sounds are often sustained across multiple beats. The tracks are almost inaccessible, like an abstract painting with a few streaks of pigment arranged on an open canvas. Each has its own texture, its own feeling, and its own color.

Given that the album was produced entirely by the Neptunes – whose third album with the group N.E.R.D. was called Seeing Sounds – this should come as no surprise. The Neptunes often drift in directions that bare no relation to the rest rest of the music industry, and they seem especially uninhibited when working with Clipse. (Pharrell himself seems to acknowledge as much here.) In this case, the Neptunes have drifted in a minimalist direction, and their work here serves as a welcomed contrast to much of the over-produced music dominating radio waves today.

The beats on Hell Hath No Fury leave no place for an MC to hide, and the Clipse are up to the challenge. Younger brother Pusha T brings tremendous intensity to the microphone without ever losing control of his cadence. Older brother Malice, who on this album outshines his counterpart, is an ingenious wordsmith, an acerbic comedian, and a vivid storyteller. Both rap in perfect rhythm with the underlying beats, and neither tries to do too much. The hooks are all simple. The Clipse breathe space into their rhymes, allowing the texture of the Neptunes’s tracks to shine through. There is a true synergy between producer and rapper.

Here’s a track by track rundown of this remarkable album.

We Got it for Cheap. Along with album’s other bookend, Nightmares, this is the most accessible track on the album. The beat is simple – a bongo drum, a synthesized keyboard and, after the first few bars, a snare hit on beats two and four. That’s it – and yet the beat still manages to feel extremely rich. Malice’s verse, the second on the song, is one of the best on the album. He comes in with tremendous energy – “The wall’s removed and now I see; my leg was pulled, the joke’s on me” – and rides that energy throughout the rest of the song. Malice’s declaration, “Seems to me reparations are overdue,” fits in beautifully with the rhythm of the underlying percussion. Three minutes and forty seconds into the album, we’re off to an incredible start.

Momma I’m So Sorry. The dominant theme of Hell Hath No Fury – and, arguably, the dominant theme in all of hip hop – is drug dealing. In Momma I’m So Sorry, however, the Clipse focus on the moral and psychological toll exacted by such activities, and even attempt to repent. Pusha T begins the last verse with a prayer: “Sorry heavenly father, once again I hate to bother.” The chorus proclaims, “Momma I’m so sorry, my only accomplice [is] my conscience.” All of this happens on top of a sorry-sounding accordion sample, like some kind of maudlin travelling carnival. Again, producer and MC both complement each other exquisitely.

Mr. Me Too. The number three song on an album is frequently its biggest hit, like the number three hitter in a baseball lineup. The Clipse seem to thumb their nose at this convention, instead serving up Mr. Me Too, one of the strangest tracks on the album. The beat features a hypnotized sounding synthesizer and stoned-out vocal sample. It grinds to a halt ever few bars for a perfectly square drum fill. Pharrell adds a dazed verse. The whole song has the feel of a vaguely disturbing dream.

Wamp Wamp (What It Do). The tension runs high throughout Wamp Wamp, thanks in large part to a vintage Neptunes percussive arrangement. The sounds of the kettle drums ricochet from one ear to another. (It takes a good pair of headphones to fully appreciate this song.) Slim Thug is fantastic on the chorus, providing a hard edge on top of a soaring synthesized melody.

Ride Around Shining. The production on this song comes as close as any to complete stasis. The snare drum hits squarely on beats one, two, and the upbeat of three, and nothing else, before a fill in beat four. A single piano chord extends, disturbingly, for bars at a time. The Clipse’s lyrics on the drug game seem detached from reality, especially when the drums drop out around the 2:30 mark.

Dirty Money. This is probably the closest Hell Hath No Fury comes to a dance song – which is to say, not particularly close. And that’s just fine. On Dirty Money, an electric guitar plays a simple riff, and a standard drumbeat comes down hard on beats three and four every few measures. Malice discusses the high flying life of a rapper, both glorifying it and drawing attention to its superficiality. Speaking to a hypothetical groupie, he finds a clever way of indirectly extoling himself: “You done got you a rapper, I see your vision – and one of the best too, that’s ambition.” At the same time, Pusha suggests that something is important is lacking here: “You can tell me ’bout your day, I pretend I’ll listen; and you ain’t gotta love me, just be convincing.”

Hello New World. This is both the hardest song on the album and also a heartfelt tribute to one of the most dominant paradigms in rap: the hustler. The synthesizer surges like swells travelling through the ocean. Malice’s verse, the second, touches on a familiar theme in rap – self-promotion – but manages, remarkably, to do so at the expense of no one. “We can all shine, I want your wrist lit like mine / Neck and ears, I want it lit like mine / Foreign cars, stick shift, 6 gears like mine.” As in Dirty Money, Malice has found an indirect and creative way to extol himself. Pusha T extends this ingenious tactic through the track’s final verse, and an interlude from a local rapper from Virginia provides an interesting overtone of revolution.

Keys Open Doors. To borrow Pusha T’s first lyric in this song, Keys Open Doors “make[s] your skin crawl.” The Neptunes employ a ghostly choral sample that recollects some kind of haunted church. Appropriately, the Clipse’s lyrics employ religious imagery. First, there’s Pusha T: “Open the Frigidaire, 25 to life [worth of drugs] in here / So much white you might think the Holy Christ is near.” Then, there’s Malice: “Get it cross state with the grace of Maria.” The chorus, a simple repetition of the phrase “keys open doors,” was catchy enough to catch Jay-Z’s attention, who borrowed it for the first verse of Thank You on The Blueprint 3.

Ain’t Cha. Probably the catchiest song of the album (it was, after all, featured on the soundtrack of the Step Up movie), Ain’t Cha still does not sacrifice any of the musical integrity found on the rest of Hell Hath No Fury. The beat features a solid drum pattern along with two chime hits per measure. Somehow, the beat feels neither happy nor sad but simply present, much like N.E.R.D.’s Spaz from Seeing Sounds. Malice’s verse, the song’s third, makes repeated use of child-related imagery in a way that is both ingenious and hilarious. He is probably the only MC to have ever rapped about Blue’s Clues and Frere Jacque – let alone in the same verse. His final lyric – “If it seems the walls are closing in it’s only ’cause they are” – is said with a crescendo that fits in perfectly with the beat, thereby completing one of the finest verses on the Hell Hath No Fury.

Trill. Probably the most bizarre song on the album. The beat is vibrating with sound, like a swarm of insects.

Chinese New Year. A chilling retelling of a stick-up episode. Malice, the gunman, reassures the listener – and victim – with an icy coldness in the second verse: “Cooperate – escaping [is] useless / Trust me, I'm your friend, I will talk you through this.” Pharrell’s chorus – “Brrraaattt - brrraaattt, brrraaattt - brrraaattt, brrraaattt - brrraaattt, ka-ka-kat-kat” – gets the point across. Interestingly, the drum pattern recycles some of the rhythms the Neptunes used in N.E.R.D.’s hit Lapdance.

Nightmares. The beat is blissfully laid-back, and after Pharrell’s dreamy verse we are led to believe that the album is ebbing to its conclusion. Then Pusha T drops his finest, most intense verse of the album. In a few sentences, he describes the glories of success – “Everybody know me, it’s like I’m a movie star” – along with the paranoia such success can induce – “Still I creep low, thinking n****s trying to harm me / Hoping my karma ain’t coming back here to haunt me.” Perhaps a microcosm of the entire album, Pusha takes us from one feeling to another, each with its own texture and color, and somehow manages to unite those feelings into a unified – and masterful – whole.

Album Review: Kanye West's My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy

Let's get this out of the way: My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy is not perfect. Devil in a New Dress is boring. Runaway goes on for way to long. The drums at the end of Hell of a Life are a little bit behind. The cellist and the pianist in the interlude for All of the Lights aren't in sync with each other. Spend enough time and you can extend this list of defects as long as you'd like.

That being said, perfection is not a reasonable criterion for an album – or for any human endeavor. The album is, without question, a work of genius. The production is impeccable, with beats that are rich, creative, and full of painstaking detail. The lyrics are witty, thoughtful, and tragic – sometimes all at the same time. The album features two of the greatest guest verses ever (Nicki Minaj on Monster, Pusha T on So Appalled), the finest lyrical performance of Kanye's career (Gorgeous), and the best song of 2010 (Power). The range on the album is astonishing, from the triumph of All of the Lights to the mournfulness of So Appalled, the dignity of Gorgeous to grotesqueness of Monster, and the sorrow of Blame Game to the dementedness of Hell of a Life. At the same time, each track feels logically connected to the next one, and the entire album forms a unified, cohesive whole.

Here’s a track by track breakdown.

Dark Fantasy. The album opens in stunning fashion. Nicki Minaj welcomes the listener into Kanye’s twisted world by paraphrasing, of all things, a poem written by Roald Dahl (see http://www.kanyetothe.com/forum/index.php?topic=24858.0). The rest of the song alternates between a slick, hard-nosed beat and an a cappella vocal melody. Somehow it all works, and Kanye’s lyrics are sharp and on time.

Gorgeous. The finest lyrical performance of Kanye’s career. He muses on the nature of hip hop, the exploitation of women within the fashion industry, and fish sticks. His cadence is virtually flawless. “This week has been a bad massage. I need a happy ending – and a new beginning.” Kid Cudi is excellent on the chorus.

Power. This song, the natural descendent of Stronger, is just badass. A powerful vocal sample (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-dtwySzcQc) is repeated throughout the song, but the underlying chords change at the 2:50 mark, giving the beat new depth and dimension. West’s lyrics are uniquely his own, especially at the song’s opening. “Screams from the haters, got a nice ring to it – I guess every superhero need his theme music.”

All of the Lights. The production of this song is almost symphonic. French horns open the song gloriously, and continue throughout the entire track. Rihanna’s hook soars above the heavy percussion, which admittedly is a bit over the top. Neither Kid Cudi nor Elton John adds much, and Fergie’s verse is just terrible. Kanye’s verses are memorable, however, and the tremendous ambition of this track is at least partially realized.

Monster. Everyone is down on Jay-Z for his verse on this song, and I don’t quite see why. Drug dealing and self-promotion, delivered with an interesting, reliable cadence – that’s a standard Jay-Z verse. At the same time, everyone is high on Nicki Minaj’s verse, and deservedly so. She kills it. By the time she unleashes the British accent and asks, “So let me get this straight, wait, I’m the rookie?” it’s all over. This is and will always be the song of her career.

So Appalled. Not to be outdone by Nicki Minaj, however, is the most underrated MC in the game: Pusha T. His verse on So Appalled is an instant classic. The rhymes are beautifully constructed, and the rhythm of their delivery is flawlessly precise. His defiant tone meshes perfectly with the cold, soulless beat. One of the most underrated songs on the album.

Devil in a New Dress. This one is a bit of a head scratcher. It’s the only song on the album not produced by Kanye, which needlessly precludes him from having both produced and rapped on every song in the album. The beat is fine, but it lacks the same energy as the rest of the album. Rick Ross’s verse is not particularly memorable.

Runaway. Also a bit of a curiosity. Kanye has a habit of picking the weakest songs on his albums as his singles. On Graduation, it was Can’t Tell Me Nothing, allegedly because 50 Cent told him to. On this album, it’s Runaway, which is a decent enough song, and certainly very Kanye, but far beneath the best of this album. Kanye gets far too carried away at the end, reverting to his tendency from 808s and Heartbreak to extend songs for two or three minutes longer than apporopriate. This track, along with Devil, represents the only rough patch on the album.

Hell of a Life. This song is demented, perverted, and just kind of fucked up. It’s also one of the best songs on the album. The baseline, seething with reverb, meshes perfectly with the unhinged nature of Kanye’s flow. The lyrics emanate from a primitive region within the depths of Kanye’s brain. Quite simply, no one else in the industry is making music like this.

Blame Game. A truly beautiful melody, sang with grace by John Legend. The beat is simple and elegant. The song gets a little weird when Kanye starts distorting his voice, and the Chris Rock bit gets stale after the first few listens. Nevertheless, this is a wonderful song, and a perfectly anticlimactic follow up to Hell of a Life.

Lost in the World. Kanye’s sole verse in this song – “You’re my devil you’re my angel, you’re my heaven you’re my hell” – is powerful. The use of vocals throughout the song is reminiscent of the album’s other bookend, Dark Fantasy, though the harmonies around the 2:20 mark take this song to another level altogether. The momentum carries over into the album's final track, Who Will Survive in America, which features an intense vocal sample – similar to that of Power – beneath a passionate monologue by Gil Scott-Heron. An incredible end to an incredible album.

The Black and White of Hip Hop Criticism

If you are good at concealing laughter and contempt, you should ask a white person about “Real Hip Hop.” They will quickly tell you about how they don’t listen to “Commercial Hip Hop” (aka music that black people actually enjoy), and that they much prefer “Classic Hip Hop.”

“I don’t listen to that commercial stuff. I’m more into the Real Hip Hop, you know? KRS One, Del Tha Funkee Homosapien, De La Soul, Wu Tang, you know, The Old School.”

Calling this style of music ‘old school’ is considered an especially apt name since the majority of people who listen to it did so while attending old schools such as Dartmouth, Bard, and Williams College.

-- A post on StuffWhitePeopleLike.com

Is OnHipHop that guy?

We are white. We grew up in a wealthy suburb. We went to an Ivy League school. We love hip hop, and write about it using words like “ambivalence” and “anachronistic.”

And yet, we don't think we're “that guy.” We don’t listen to early hip hop to pretend like it gives us some modicum of “street cred.” We don’t spontaneously recite Tupac lyrics and pretend to be from “the hood.” We simply listen to whatever hip hop we want to listen to because we like the way it makes us feel.

That being said, this passage from StuffWhitePeopleLike points out an important truth. Hip hop is, with several notable exceptions, created by black musicians, many of whom grew up with little material wealth. At the same time, hip hop is consumed in large part by white kids from middle- and upper-class suburbs.

As such, does OnHipHop erroneously – and arrogantly – presume that we can intelligently comment on hip hop? And, for that matter, might the same be said of high-brow publications like the New York Times and Slate, which regularly print reviews of hip hop albums next to columns on the New York Phil? (Last week, the Times’s Jon Caramanica classified Lil’ Wayne as an “abstract expressionist.” In Lil’ Wayne’s often boastful songs, this is definitely not one of the phrases he uses to describe himself.)

The answer to this question may very well be yes. There is much about Lil’ Wayne’s upbringing that OnHipHop does not pretend to understand. He was carrying a gun to school by the time he was a teenager and fathered a child by the time he was 14. Without fully understanding the experiences that shaped the man, how can we fully understand Lil’ Wayne’s artistic output?

But by the same logic, how can scholars presume to understand the music of Beethoven, who was completely deaf for much of his life and may have also suffered from bipolar disorder. How can critics analyze the paintings of Vincent van Gogh, who was driven so far into madness that he attempted to cut his ear off? How can we pretend to comprehend these artists’ works, when these works were byproducts of lives so different from our own?

Ultimately, critics cannot satisfactorily answer this question. They must simply do their best to understand and empathize with the artist, and try to set their own biases aside.

Why the Christmas Presents Aren't Rapped

Hip hop, it is often said, has sold out. It used to be about creativity, self-expression, and big parties. Now it’s about celebrity, self-promotion, and big business. Hip hop may have entered the mainstream, but at the cost of selling its soul.

But if this were really the case, why isn’t there more Christmas-themed hip hop?

It’s no secret that Christmas music tends to be extremely lucrative. A feeling of Christmasy excitement dominates the weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, and people are willing to pay for the appropriate soundtrack. Given this demand, artists gladly provide the supply. In virtually every genre of music, dozens and dozens of artists release Christmas-themed albums every year. Heck, Elvis Presley put out a new Christmas album this year, and he’s been dead since 1977.

Hip hop stands as a glaring exception. There have been a handful of Christmas-themed rap albums over the years – most notably Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis – but none have stood the test of time. No Christmas hip hop songs have become ingrained in popular culture the way that “Let it Snow,” “Jingle Bell Rock,” and “White Christmas” have. While Christmas music dominates the airwaves of rock-n-roll, jazz, and classical radio stations throughout the holiday season, on hip hop stations you would hardly know it’s December.

If hip hop were really all about money, how can this be the case?

For one, there is a fundamental musical disconnect between Christmas music and hip hop. Christmas music tends to feature soaring melodies, major chords, and soothing resolutions. Hip hop is more about jagged samples, repetitive drum patterns, and verbal syncopation. Where Christmas music is smooth, hip hop is raw.

There is also a basic incompatibility of subject matter. Christmas music frequently concerns subjects that are happy, jolly, carefree. Hip hop tends to carry much more baggage. The rapper grapples with his past. He may rejoice in his present, but usually by contrasting that present with his difficult past. Even happy rap is bittersweet. As Jay-Z so memorably rapped on Reasonable Doubt, “On the rise to the top, many drop. Don't forget / In order to survive, gotta learn to live with regrets.”

In the end, hip hop is an art form that, for better or worse, does not easily lend itself to Christmasization. This may be cause for some disappointment. In the bigger picture, however, this reality should comfort all fans of hip hop. Hip hop may have evolved into something very different from what it once was. Yet it retains certain qualities that can be altered, but not abandoned. Hip hop, in short, is still hip hop.

The Recession

Hip hop music has only two essential ingredients: a beat and a voice. These ingredients are extremely inexpensive. A beat can come from a turntable, a trashcan, a beatboxer, or any other available source of rhythm. And a voice can come from anyone. No purchase necessary, no batteries required.

It is no coincidence that good hip hop can be produced at so little cost. In the urban areas where hip hop first developed, there was no money for violin lessons, guitar strings, or sheet music. The residents of these neighborhoods, driven by the quintessentially human desire for self-expression, developed hip hop as an inexpensive way to meet this need.

But hip hop wasn’t merely a compromise. No one thought of hip hop as a sorry substitute for more desirable but prohibitively expensive forms of culture. To the contrary, hip hop had certain qualities that few other art forms could match. The minimal costs of producing hip hop meant that anybody could participate. The best rapper won the mic, simple as that – meritocracy at its purest. Plus, hip hop was portable. You could create hip hop music anywhere – in the park, the gymnasium, even the school yard. In short, unfortunate financial circumstances did not impose limitations on hip hop so much as contribute to its greatest assets.

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In the opening song of his latest album, aptly titled “The Recession”, Young Jeezy raps, “It's a recession. Everybody's broke.” Though Jeezy certainly exaggerates here, who can blame him? It’s become impossible to pick up a newspaper, turn on a television, or surf the Internet without being bombarded by more terrible news about the economy. Another 100,000 people out of work; another corporate behemoth brought to its knees; another $100 billion government bailout.

So yes, Jeezy, it is a recession. The next several years look increasingly grim, and there’s probably not much anyone can do about it at this point. This is, without a doubt, cause for despair.

OnHipHop does not mean to minimize the negative effects of this country’s economic struggles. Nor do we mean to suggest that widespread anxiety over the economy is unjustified. We merely point out that some of this country’s greatest cultural treasures were born during difficult economic times. Furthermore, these treasures were born not just despite the depressed economy, but at least in part because of it. Just consider hip hop.

Perhaps this is cause for reexamining cultural responses to prior recessions. Or perhaps this is simply cause for some consolation in the face of today's recession. To quote Young Jeezy’s lyric in its entirety: “It's a recession. Everybody's broke. So I just came back – to give everybody hope.”