And I know this one was posted up before but not, I think, the lulzy-nostalgic video (one of
several, this linked of which was considerably advanced and complex for it's day)
again fuck that is like 25 years ago, damn, it's an amazingly new genre, really, especially to grow global really early in it's life, didn't even happen with Rock, that took, depending on what you call Rock, either 10-15 years or more years to become absolutely mainstream and international, hiphop took probably less than 10. we living in a faster and faster world.
a lot of the contemporary (mass market) hiphop sucks but the whole progress in production and everything is super interesting, and in terms of realness there's plenty keeping it real in the underground and how the production means are for the masses
it's really a symbol of a lot of how our culture and economy changed and hiphop was right at the moment of it, as Rock was right the post-War period in the U.S. and with the culture changes after that.
(now I'm going to watch 90s hip hop videos all night. I recently think that I might have picked up marijuana again, bought the first that I have in years, it's making it particularly nostalgic. also interesting to think about how the rappers rapping about smoking pot and even dealing drugs was edgy back then, now just typical, went along with society's attitudes towards smoking pot, and was probably involved in it, drug-dealing I guess is more complex but a lot of that counter-economy is involved with hip-hop like a lot of acid-dealing and psychedelic business is part of the counter-economy that surrounds the Grateful dead, etc., I think that's the best way to describe it, at least in the beginning, and then it just became an archetype to give shouts out to, even Rick Ross was and he was on the opposite side of the "war" lol, and there being
controversy about it whereas Elvis was given the title of "Honorary Anti-Narcotics Officer" or something to that effect, although of course he was getting strung out on pills around that time, but it was legal, anyway, the real counter-economic sentiment seems naturally enough to complement the counter-cultural sentiments that come with rock; this is, after all, an age that's focused much more on economy than culture.)
