December 1st is World AIDS Day, a day dedicated to awareness of HIV/AIDS, the virus that over 33 million people in the world currently live with, and has killed over 25 million people since 1981*. But simply being aware of the disease isn’t enough… the most valuable piece of information you can have about HIV/AIDS is your own status. As someone who gets tested every 6 months whether I’m sexually active or not, I find the peace of mind that HIV/AIDS testing provides is absolutely priceless.

Lucky for those of us in the Philadelphia area, there are a number of locations where you can get free & confidential HIV/AIDS testing, including the ActionAIDS organization, which provides walk-in service & 20 minute rapid saliva testing… no waiting up to two weeks for results!

For a comprehensive list of locations that provide free & confidential HIV/AIDS testing in the Philadelphia metro area, please see this site provided by UPenn’s Office of Health Education. (Thanks to Denice Frohman for the link!)

* – statistics from http://www.avert.org/worldstats.htm

If you don't know who this man is, get the fuck off my blog.

I was born in 1979. The same year that Sugar Hill Gang recorded “Rapper’s Delight”. I turned 30 this year. In hip-hop terms, I’m an “old head”. According to Soulja Boy & his ilk, I should probably hang it up and listen to Mel Torme. Truth be told, I’d rather listen to The Velvet Fog than most of what permeates today’s “urban radio”.

Not long ago, I was asked by the homie Mikey McFly why I had so much love for hip-hop music. The reason for the love is that hip-hop & I grew up together, and it taught me a lot about myself . Growing up,  my Dad listened to a lot of 70s dirt rock (the term with which I affectionately refer to acts such as Meatloaf & Lynyrd Skynyrd), while my Mom was pumping a steady diet of 1960s soul & folk music into my head, including just about anything that Motown & Stax put out, combined with a little Janis Joplin & the Soundtrack to “Hair”. I have an appreciation for almost all types of music, but hip-hop is my true love.

It had to have been around 1985 that my Brother introduced me to hip-hop music with a compilation album (a for-real ALBUM, made of wax & everything) that included songs like Doug E. Fresh’s “The Show”, “A Fly Girl” by Boogie Boys, and Roxanne Shante’s “Bite This”. It didn’t take very long for me to fall in love with hip-hop, and while the relationship has been rocky from time to time, it only takes a step back to the golden era to renew my adoration.

I let this tape rock til the tape popped...

In 1988, at the ripe old age of 9, I went to Warehouse Music and bought the first cassette tape with money I had earned from doing chores… NWA’s classic Straight Outta Compton. The cashier was kind enough to overlook the parental advisory warning and sell it to the tow-headed kid with the bowl haircut, and for that I am eternally grateful. NWA was my first foray into so-called “gangsta rap”, which in ‘88 still had a “the ghetto’s fucked up, you don’t want to be here” feel to it… far from the ‘hood glamorization that it morphed into. Maybe I was just more open-minded back then, but I seem to remember it being perfectly OK to simultaneously appreciate both gangsta rap and the more conscious, Afrocentric hip-hop that was coming out around the same time. Acts like Public Enemy, Brand Nubian, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest, Paris & X-Clan were all extremely influential to me in my formative years, guiding me to research African & African-American history.

That was one of the things about hip-hop music that I loved during my childhood that has almost completely been eradicated… a sense of pride in the music. Not even necessarily pride in one’s race or nationality, but in the worth of the personal being. In 2009, the “pride” that we see in hip-hop music is centered around cars, medallions, women… all the things KRS-One warned us about in “Love’s Gonna Get’cha”. There’s no longer a sense of self-worth unless that worth is derived from material possessions. Allow this mentality to thrive and soon you’re left with…

This kid standing so close to anything with the words "hip-hop" on it is a travesty.

Although I’m a proud Cali native, I place the blame for hip-hop’s demise squarely on the West Coast. The beginning of the end of the golden era even has a date: December 15th, 1992, the day Dr. Dre’s The Chronic dropped. The incredible amount of attention that the album received, combined with the commercial success, all but did away with the positive & progressive-thinking hip-hop that had been so prevalent. Gone were the African medallions and thought-provoking lyrics, and in were the stories of drive-by shootings, promiscuous sex, misogyny & illicit drug use and/or selling. In the interest of full disclosure, I seriously LOVE this album… but I saw it as the Yang to A Tribe Called Quest’s Yin, not a dominant force that would take over the game, nor was I rooting for it to do so. The East Coast’s response was not only to match the violence and misogyny of the West, but to do it in a flashier, even more marketable manner. After the East Coast dominated the scene for nearly decade with sample-heavy & complex production schemes, the South surged into the scene in the late 90s with simple lyrics & even simpler beats. The only things that remained the same were the materialism, violence, and negativity towards women.

If this is the definition of "real", point me to where "fake" is. Thanks!

The “golden era” of hip-hop is called that for a reason… the music was raw, the lyrics were honest, the performers were hungry… some metaphorically, some literally, some both. Despite some of the subject matter, there was a sort of innocence to hip-hop in the 1980s that was a direct result of its infancy. We talk about mainstream vs. underground hip-hop these days… In the 80s, nearly ALL hip-hop was underground because it had nowhere else to be. Now that hip-hop IS the mainstream, the “old head” is quickly becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. The hip-hop fan of days past looks at the successful hip-hop of 2009 with both appreciation & disdain. We don’t dislike the new music simply because it’s new, we dislike it because it has strayed so far from what hip-hop was & in my opinion, is meant to be. Yes, I’m thrilled that hip-hop, as a genre has succeeded beyond anything I thought was possible when I was younger. But as a fan of not just the music, but the culture behind it, I lament that the success comes at the price of hip-hop’s soul.

“But Sam,” you say, “you run a hip-hop related blog… and it covers current artists!”… And you’re right. There is plenty of good hip-hop music in 2009, if you do your research and dig for it. Just to name a few, Tanya Morgan, Blu, TiRon, Brother Ali, Writtenhouse, Hustle Simmons are all among my favorites. But the culture of hip-hop, the culture that at one point was focused on uplifting entire communities of people, won’t improve until one of two things happens: either these kinds of artists achieve some sort of commercial success that doesn’t involve them blending entirely into the mainstream, or hip-hop dies out of the mainstream altogether and goes back to being a purely underground form of entertainment. Would the death of hip-hop as a commodity save its soul as a culture? Once you take the prospect of wealth out of the game, you’ll get rid of the players for whom wealth is the only goal.

…so what say you, o readers of bluntedonreality.com? What’s your personal experience with hip-hop? What do you think of the current state & the potential outcomes of the music & culture? Let’s build!

UPDATE (9/17/09): WCAU (NBC Philadelphia) is reporting that the State of Pennsylvania has passed the budget measures necessary to fund many of Philadelphia’s city services. More details are coming…

ORIGINAL POST (9/14/09): As Mayor Michael Nutter works to make his vision of a more “desirable” (read: gentrified) Philadelphia for out-of-towners a reality, he’s affected those who currently live within the city limits to a great deal. With a  well-documented budget fight taking place in Harrisburg, the city has decided that without the State-provided money approved for the city, the remaining libraries in the Free Library system will be closed on October 2nd, 2009. Take a second to imagine that… the United States’ 6th most populous city, with 1.5 million residents within the city limits, will not have a functioning public library to speak of.

Typically, the only calls to action that I post on this site involve going out to support a local musician or business… believe me when I say this, and no disrespect is meant to anyone, but the Philadelphia Free Library system is FAR more important than any restaurant, nightclub, or rapper could ever dream to be. Among the services the provide the community are GED & ESL classes, as well as the much-needed LEAP after-school program. In a city where 23% of the population lives below the poverty line, these city-provided services are absolutely invaluable.

So what can you do? Please visit the Free Library’s website and learn about actions you can take as a Philadelphia city or Pennsylvania state resident. WE pay the taxes that keep this city & state running and WE cast the votes that put these politicians into office, so WE HOLD THE POWER. TAKE ACTION NOW! If you do not live in Pennsylvania or you’re still not sure which elected representative to call, please contact Gov. Ed Rendell’s office. Time is running out, but with enough outcry from the public, we can make a difference!!