Hip Hop is a holy trinity of DJing, breakdancing and rhyming/rapping. Born in NYC as a youth alternative to gang violence in the late 1970′s, it has become one of the most commercial and successful cultures in recent history.

Contrary to popular belief, Hip Hop was never an exclusively black art form, youth of all backgrounds help shape Hip Hop. It goes some way to explain why there has always been an acceptance of people from many backgrounds and cultures (a post modernist art form, if you will).

But in the last 10 years things have taken an unpredictable turn, Chris Rock probably said it best;

“You know the world is going crazy when the best rapper is a white guy, the best golfer is a black guy…”

Yes – Eminem earned that tag on merit and even won an Oscar with it.
The most visible form of Hip Hop is now pop music, permanently supplanting Rock music as the choice of rebellious teens, it can be as commercial and non threatening as bubble gum in a packet too…

I consider the real artform to be not as easy to find – but God bless people like DJ Premier for his weekly radio show ‘Live From HeadQcourterz”, it’s a great reminder of the pure form of Hip Hop music.

This preamble is meant to soften the blow for what comes next.

Let me get to the point of this blog -a couple of weeks ago, this (below) was posted on a music blog that I respect!

My first reaction? I was impressed – it wasn’t a freestyle in the purest sense of the word, but there were some cool lines.
The delivery was fairly good, I guess I could not hate on it..

Then about a week later – there was this;

I actually preferred the first ‘rhyme’, by the time I’d finished watching the second one, I was in full ‘meh’ mode – why?

Well….

• Biebs has rapped many times before in Hip Hop settings, like the Westwood Show, and I think he genuinely loves rapping and rap music
• But, in under a month, Bieber has appeared on two of the most popular and commercial ‘urban/hip hop’ radio stations in the US
• Whilst the lyrics and delivery were very good, it lacked an emotional connection – it even betrayed nerves (a big MC no-no)!
• There’s been better examples of artists impresively crossing over to the ‘urban’ side, Britney’s Neptunes powered ‘Slave For U’ is still the best
• It seems to be in vogue for celebs to either be DJs or Rappers at the moment (yawn)

Interestingly, this outbreak of Bieber the Rapper syndrome was not met with adulation by one key person in Hip Hop circles – DJ Premier who curates the highly popular annual BET cyphers;
Don’t get it wrong, DJ Premier doesn’t have anything against Justin Bieber.

The story goes like this, Justin Bieber asked if he could join the BET Cyphers ’11 which was cool for Premo and the staff.
DJ Premier doesn’t care who joins the cyphers as long as you can spit dope verses everybody is allowed.

But then Justin Bieber wanted Ludacris to write his rhymes and that wasn’t allowed by DJ Premier. Thanks to DJ Premier the BET Cyphers are still spitting ryhmes on dope breaks like they used to do it on the streets… Word!

I’ll ignore the part about him having rhymes ‘ghost written’ for him (there are many rap stars who are guilty of this!) and choose to focus on the fact that DJ Premier made a conscious choice based on credibility. It’s a rare and beautiful thing.

Ironically, Chris Brown, who could also be described as an graduate of the teen singing stable who is now reinventing part of his persona as a rapper, was included;

Chris’ credibility as a rapper is somewhat in the balance, I’d argue that his need to be a bad boy necessitates the need to become a part time rapper – not something Bieber can flirt with, even with his paternity issues!

Let me end my bitching and provide some good examples of the Hip Hop/freestyle artform;

And how about;

The moral of this ongoing story is that, credibility is very very hard to come by. It must be earned legitimately and cannot be artificially composed.
Even if you do have all the ingredients, it’s not so easy to prove your rapping chops.

Mr Bieber, you are a talented dude – but please take note!

R