The hip-hop culture sprouted music potent enough to provoke social change and awareness. Since then, it has been watered down to a warped version of what it was originally about, said solo MC Melvin “Jungle1” Mayes.
Mayes said that when he was growing up, artists had realized what a powerful tool of communication hip-hop was.
“I remember being in the fourth grade — every magazine is telling your kids not to listen to this. I learned about Operation PUSH (People United to Serve Humanity) from (the rapper) Ice Cube, I learned about abortion, I learned about welfare; all those things I learned from hip-hop,” he said. “It changed the entire direction of life, my whole way of thinking — as opposed to now: you have these monosyllabic guys who are rapping about their jeans and their cars. The youth aren’t learning anything from that.”
Since then, the music people call hip-hop has changed dramatically, from talking about social and political issues to clothes and cars, Mayes said. Everything rappers talk about these days insults what hip-hop was supposed to be about, he said, but Albuquerque artists have maintained an organic sound, something that comes from the soul, instead of trying to meet the industry standard.
“To me, it’s like a throwback to the ‘90s, which some consider the golden age or era of hip-hop,” he said. “Every artist had their own unique identity, their own persona, their own sound; everyone was trying to break ground and being original was the underlying motive of doing hip-hop — as opposed to now.”
Collin Troy, one of two MCs for the 2bers music group, said he got into hip-hop around the time gangster rap was becoming popular.
“When I first got turned on to hip-hop as a kid in the early ‘90s, I was ashamed. I’d hide it from people — my friends, my family — because I didn’t want to be called a ‘wigger’ and I didn’t want people to think differently about me,” he said. “And I’m serious; I was insecure about it even though I liked it and I really identified with it.”
UNM student and MC Isaac “Sexual Intellectual” Flowerday said the music became whatever the artist needed it to be because there are no rules to define it.
“People will come up to me and try to tell me, ‘This isn’t real hip-hop. This is this, that is that,’ but I’ll talk to people 40 years old, people who were young when hip-hop was starting up, and we just bond and just vibe on it … it’s whatever you want it to be,” he said.
Hakim Bellamy is Albuquerque’s first poet laureate and one of two MCs that make up Urban Verbs, a local rap group. The music is not just unique in the kind of sound people create, he said.
“Being an autobiographical art form, it’s as unique as the individual that’s writing it,” he said. “Everybody talks about where they’re from to a certain extent, but I think New Mexico has the benefit of not being kind of a city with this long history of hip-hop. I think Albuquerque’s hip-hop is one of originality. It’s about being different. We have a clean slate and we can kind of create our own way, which makes a really unique, individual style of music.”
Despite the fact that anybody can be part of the general hip-hop culture, it’s not as easy as listening to Ludacris on the radio, Bellamy said. The culture in Albuquerque is almost intentionally exclusive, he said. This makes it difficult for the artists to be financially successful.
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“You can only sell so many records to your family and friends,” he said.
But he said it preserves the culture here by challenging people who want to be a part of it.
“You don’t know until you’ve gone to an event or a block party where you see people dancing, you see people painting, you see people laughing, see them doing HIV/AIDS tests there, see them passing out condoms there, see them cooking out, see kids my son’s age — he’s 4 — all the way up to people who are 70 at Breaking Hearts. Now you’re seeing a community, not just something you can buy on a CD in a store,” he said.
