Sign In Sign-Up

Welcome!

Close

Would you like to make this site your homepage? It's fast and easy...

Yes, Please make this my home page!

No Thanks

  Don't show this to me again.

Close

Hip hop is a state of mind ...it's a culture. Hip hop is not what is perceived by watching Mtv and the like,flashing cash and having the phatest ride. Hip hop is the music,the politics and the poetry of the streets.

~ kimba ~

November 1999

 

After a night of partying comes a sobering revelation to accompany our
collective hangover: "the dreaded year is almost upon us !" As the
gleefully apocalyptic tune of the same name seems to suggest in its
spine-tingling introduction (da-daaaadaaaant, daaadaaadaaant), the hour
of reckoning has arrived, rather like a thief in the night &emdash; stealthily,
while the world was somehow lulled to blissful sleep. The Y2K
computer bug crisis is a fitting symbol for our overall level of
preparedness for the changes to come: haphazard and
piecemeal, a little here, more over there, none at all right there.
The analogy can, in fact be stretched to fit the whole of our
society. Who among us, after all, is truly prepared in their
professional, social and spiritual life for the sweeping changes
presumably in store for mankind on this, the eve of an entirely
unpredictable new epoch? In a time such as this, where all bets are off,
normal modes of thinking and acting will need radical retooling, indeed,
they may need to be trashed entirely for a more instinctual and
intuitive approach to everyday issues. A "close your eyes and grit your
teeth" method will have to be adapted to some degree at all levels of
society if there is to be any hope of dealing adequately with the changes
to come.
             

 While
 science and religion grapple with the eternal questions of
how we got here and what it all means in the greater stream of
existence, they face the real possibility of having to manufacture new
myths to define and justify our existence. No institution is without this
basic dilemma... least of all, the arts.
             
          Music, the most ubiquitous (and arguably, the most formulaic and
redundant) one of them all is particularly in need of some fresh ideas.
Hip Hop &emdash; which has long since proven to be the most successful
and dynamic hustler of popular culture &emdash; even with its crackling
energy has itself reached a point of stagnation. Although certain groups
do sporadically buck the trend, dreams of Cristal sippin', Rolex
wearin', iced&endash;down medallion flossin', E&endash;class Benso pushin',
mac-millie totin', and other gangsta clichés reflect a crisis of grossly
distorted values which all too often mutate into deviant (anti)social
behavior.
             
            Art imitates Life, imitates Art as impressionable youth act out
lifestyles glamorized by popular artists and packaged for consumption
by unscrupulous and parasitic corporate executives, which reflects
back into the music (and culture) a confirmation of those same
distorted values, in a hideous and tragic cycle. None of this, I might
add, brings our generation any closer to a comprehensive
understanding of, and readiness for, the new millennium. The deranged
drama is played out every day in large cities, obscure suburbs and even
isolated rural areas... the actors completely oblivious to, and unprepared
for, the changes ahead. Out of this muddled mess emerges the Exile
Society, four individuals who stand, at the ready, to drag Hip Hop
kicking and screaming if necessary, into the TwentyFirst Century. 

 

MORE KNOWLEDGE

 

© 1999 The Exile Society and Mortal Klokworque Records, all rights reserved