Hip Hop has seemingly found legitimacy, not just as a musical art form but as a derivative culture. The Hip Hop Diaspora has spawned sub genres of art forms from theater to visual art that have staked claims within so called legitimate venues for classical arts.

The Smithsonian in Washington DC is offering an exhibit featuring portraits of Rap music icons hung in the National Portrait gallery- next to the likes of George Washington. Detroit’s Museum of Contemporary Art is also presenting a 12 piece exhibition by  Russian-born American painter Alexander Melamid: Holy Hip-Hop! New Paintings by Alex Melamid. Major theatrical institutions are commissioning and producing works by artist from the Hip Hop Diaspora.  Corporate behemoths have long recognized the marketing value of usurping Hip Hop images and hiring rappers and other Hip Hip figure heads as spokesfolk, all adding t the legitimacy of Hip Hp and its commercial market share.


Admittedly, anything that gives power to the disenfranchised is a good look. But is this “legitimizing” in fact doing that, or is it another sort of pimpery, leaving Hip Hop as the high class whore waking up with a stack of $20s on the bed stand after a night of flashing lights and popped Ace of Spades bottles?

But I dare say—why the fuck does Hip Hop need said legitimacy? Hip Hop was a rebellion. Rebel music, rebel dance guerilla art—in seeking legitimacy and approval of institutions and mainstream culture, the rebel fire is extinguished. Until the generative artists are able to wrest control both creative direction and dissemination, of this art form back, who does this legitimizing truly benefit? Is it the inevitable? The American way to pimp out a great idea, bastardize it until it’s a shadow of its former self.

Or is there a balance that can be struck? By adding a certain legitimacy and institutional support, are new generations of artists being offered the opportunity to tell their stories in a voice that is distinctly Hip Hop?  In order for this third option to be actualized, it would seem that the older members if the so-called Hip Hop generation, both the recognized leadership and those of us in the shadows, do our part to tell the true story of Hip Hop and pass the torch so that this institutionalizing and commercializing isn’t in fact a con, but indeed serves as a power grab for those who would otherwise have the doors of power and decision aiming closed to them.

The country most of us live in is in a leadership and political transition, the world economy and power structure is shifting daily. A revolution is happening before our very eyes, and we have the opportunity to jump in and make and actively make a choice of the direction our culture of Hip Hop will go. Will we allow our voice to be institutionalized and memorialized as an exhibit within a museum, a static snapshot of what once was, or will we choose to dictate what is?