Talk:Conscious hip hop

survey

I Believe this should moved to the name of "Positive Rap" or "Positive Hip-hop" as it is a more popular name "Concious Hip-Hop" is too broad as a whole like many artist could be considered that ranging from 2Pac(Gangsta Rap) to Nas(Mofasio Rap) or even Lupe Fiasco(Alternative Hip-Hop)and even Kanye West(Pop Rap) it should be split into Political Hip-Hop and Positive Hip-Hop.Xx1994xx (talk) —Preceding undated comment was added at 18:28, 31 October 2008 (UTC).

list

what about Nas, he has lots of socially conscious songs, even 2Pac had some of the most famous socially conscious hip-hop like "Dear Mama", "Brenda's Got a Baby", "Changes", and "Keep Your Head Up" etc, what do you think, I dont want to just add them to the list without this discussion though.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.124.0.88 (talk • contribs)

I'd say don't add them, because even though they might have some conscious material, they're mostly gangsta. Λυδαcιτγ 03:44, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I agree, the list is more for predominately Conscious rappers. ReverendG 04:04, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

i think there should be a list of conscious artists. it would help clarify the genre. ReverendG 17:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Good idea! Want to start it? List of conscious hip hop artists. Λυδαcιτγ 04:33, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Sure, I don't think it'll warrent it's own page until it's become quite long, but I can start one in this article. ReverendG 05:27, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

Looks good. Λυδαcιτγ 03:57, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Kanye West is far from a conscious hip hop artist, unless you consider his hypocritical "Jesus Walks" and jewels as benefitting society. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.208.87.163 (talk • contribs)

Kanye is concious whether you agree with his message or not, you dont have to believe his message for it to be concious, it doesnt have to be right or wrong, its a social message.--Samil20 13:12, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Added Michael Franti & Spearhead. I was surprised they weren't already on the list. -User:Alexalamode

I'd just like to say that perhaps this list could be cleaned up a bit. Just because a rapper/hip hop artist has one or two socially conscious songs doesn't necessarily make them a socially conscious ARTIST. I'd put 2Pac, Kanye, and perhaps Wu-Tang Clan in this category of not really conscious rappers. Thoughts? Tiger Khan (talk) 23:42, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Added: Arspading:

I believe 2Pac is absolutely a socially concious rapper, and I'm very uncomfortable with people suggesting that, because he is 'gangsta', he should be barred; if anything, he's more likely to understand economic and political oppression. A gangsa hip hop is, to our generation, what a dirty, presumably sexually loose, drug-doing folk-singer in the 60s was, and all of them would absolutely make the list (Dylan, anyone?). Keep in mind: Tupac is from Oakland, CA, and that rapping about things like street cred, bling and even pimping/especially hustling are a part of life in the ghetto/lower, cyclical poverty classes.

Kanye definately has socially conscious songs, but the bulk of his influential material is more entertaining/humorous/sample-based; I think he falls outside the border.

Other heavy-hitters that I feel definately make the list:

Nas Lauryn Hill Common (maybe) The Roots / Black Thought Talib Kweli De La Soul Dead Prez (borderline political/more extreme) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Arspading (talk • contribs) 06:44, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Kanye is definitely a conscious rapper, even though (only) few of his songs actually bring up such themes. Maybe he shouldn't be mentioned as a "pure" conscious hip hop artist, but his name could mentioned somewhere between the lines. Songs such as "All falls down", "We don't care", "Roses" and "Diamonds from Sierra Leone (Remix)" are too great to be forgotten.--Hevosen (talk) 19:14, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Is there...unconscious hip-hip?

Well...is there? Sounds like a load of bollocks if you ask me. --M1ss1ontomars2k4 17:26, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Just because there is no "opposite" to concious hip-hop doesnt mean its bull. Its like saying Metal Rock then theres got to be Plastic Rock.--Samil20 12:55, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Nice response, though I would add: Yes, there is hip-hop that isn't conscious hip-hop. It's not unconscious, like asleep, but it's not conscious hip-hop. TribeCalledQuest 12:04, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

If I was too read a book about science I'd more than likely find it intelligent, if I read a Non-Fictional book, say Lord of the Rings, that too would be intelligent but they work on two whole different levels. Conscious rap is just a term for a genre that categorizes a few rappers, if some people don't fit to that same genre it doesn't make them the opposite. Being a conscious rapper doesn't make you better than other rappers, it just means you choose to rap about society and politics and those views are not necessarily correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.127.57 (talk) 00:11, 18 February 2009 (UTC)

I know that first one was from 2006 but yes, there definetly is such a thing as unconscious hip hop. Search Soulja Boy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.162.184.18 (talk) 06:38, 28 November 2009 (UTC)

"Conscious Rap" common, accepted label that needs to be included

I would propose improving the Underground Rap page and making sure there is a link from there to an improved Conscious Rap page. We cannot merely delete this (conscious rap) page. Hip hop/rap historians *and the artists themselves* clearly demarcate and identify "conscious rap" as a genre. Let's not delete it, but instead work on improving all of the pages connected with hip hop/rap genres. I cannot begin to do this now, but as someone who is beginning to teach the history of hip hop as an academic subject in universities, I would certainly propose keeping the topic alive and open to refinement by academic and nonacademic scholars of hip hop.—Preceding unsigned comment added by Biancom (talk • contribs)

Is the one little sentence that shows on the main page for this entry that which is being proposed to be deleted? Why not just call it a stub that needs expansion, rather than deletion (forgive my ignorance; I am a newbie at the whole wikipedia editing thing)?

Instead of writing two paragraphs decrying how unjust the prod is, you could write two paragraphs in the article itself. MOD 16:27, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

No offense, but who's to decide whats conscious and whats not? The press? I hope not.--Urthogie 17:08, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

"Conscious" is not to be taken literally. Cubist art is not made of cubes. And 3D art is more often than not 2 dimensional. Conscious hip-hop means hip-hop that is concerned with societal issues, as opposed to political issues. MOD 11:47, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I would like to contribute to the article, but I don't have the time right now to do it justice. I just wanted to advocate for not removing the entry at this time. ~biancom (aka Dr. B)

Could you explain how we would know whos conscious?--Urthogie 08:59, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

If the article is written without giving examples, is it still a problem that exactly who is "conscious" is subjective? I'm sure there are worthwhile and well established Wikipedia articles for which examples are no less subjective. Tim Ivorson 09:52, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

How can subjectivities be dealt with while respecting WP:V?--Urthogie 10:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

In the way that the authors of the aesthetics article might write whatever is verifiable about beauty, but omit their opinions. Aren't you really saying that "conscious" hip hop is in the eye of the beholder? Tim Ivorson 13:37, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

I think aesthetics is a different situation because it is a recognized branch of philosophy. Noone says conscious hip hop is a genre, as far as i know.--Urthogie 16:09, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Conscious hip hop isn't recognized as a genre because the label is so acute it often applies to songs or very niche artists. Then again, at times that's really the opposite, one could call both KRS-ONE and Black Nubian conscious artists. Same with Queen Latifah, even though all the aforementioned artists are considered Golden Age and Political. It's songs like Queen Latifah's "UNITY," Black Nubian's "Hold On," and BDP's "Build and Destroy" that could be deemed as conscious hip-hop. MOD 19:30, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, but there's no source that's an authority on whats conscious, so the article would lend itself to opinion and speculation.--Urthogie 08:26, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

How do you know if there is no source? You can't speak on this with authority, have you researched the topic at all? Being quick to assume there's no authority and then discredit the article itself is rather mistaken, is it not? MOD 10:34, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

There's no amount of research that could find an authority on any subjective issue. Of course, I could be wrong if this is an objective thing. If it is objective, and I'm wrong, could you please explain how that is?--Urthogie 12:12, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

A genre by definition is subjective. Hip-hop doesn't always use funk/soul/jazz records and rock doesn't always have an identical rhythm. Things change. Conscious hip-hop is a label applied to rap that raises awareness of social issues. That's it. Saying rock is objectively something, rap is objectively something, or jazz is objectively something is not proper and it limits the scope of the music that can be classified under the genre. MOD 15:39, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

A genre isn't subjective. There are some guys that are indisputably hip hop. Guru, for example would not be rock. Is he conscious? Subjective.--Urthogie 20:48, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

A genre is subjective. It's a category of music by sounds. If rock were to use turntables, it'd still be rock, even if it's borrowing a primarily hip-hop element. There's no such thing as a purely anything. Hip-hop encompasses all that is rapping over drumbeats with samples. If Blondie or the Fatback Band decide to do it, they don't automatically become hip-hop. Mos Def experiments a lot with a live sound, he's still hip-hop. It's an average of all output of an artist, a genre is. Guru would definitely be conscious, as he very rarely makes a point to brag about material possessions, though he does brag about his basketball skills. In way too many songs, Guru expounds upon jazz, the state of the industry, and the state of the world. Someone who's not always conscious is 50 Cent, who primarily makes gangster rap. What else would you call Guru? Golden age, alternative, underground, jazz-rap, the list goes on. You might as well add that the guy is socially conscious. This refusal to acknowledge a "subjective" label is hypocritical. MOD 23:55, 10 May 2006 (UTC)

WP:CIVIL, please. TheJabberwʘck 01:58, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Modulatum, I can't understand how you completely fail to understand the difference between an obvious genre seperation (hip hop) and a subjective one (conscious). There is no dispute over whether so-and so is hip hop at the hip hop music page. It's only at pages like this. The music press often disagrees on sub genres, but almost never on the main genre. If you fail to recognize this, I don't think your view can gain much acceptence.--Urthogie 10:32, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Whatever. MOD 13:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Whether an artist or a recording is "conscious" is probably subjective. (I think we'd need a better definition than the article currently has to be sure. If "conscious" hip hop is by definition the morally best hip hop music, it is more subjective than hip hop music as a whole, but we could get round that just by acknowledging it.) Science has its demarcation problem and I think that most musical genres have theirs. What are our actual options? Is anybody proposing going further than merging with political hip hop? Is anybody strongly opposed to this? Tim Ivorson 11:33, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

A merger wouldn't be too big of a deal, in fact the conscious hip-hop article would benefit as being a section in an article that can serve as a point of reference. MOD 13:35, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Political hip hop is a recognized genre in the music press. Also, its obvious when someone is being political.--Urthogie 13:02, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Concious is not subjective. It's obvious when a rapper is being concious on a song, whether he is right or wrong is a different story. If you dont agree with the message thats different, but being "concious" is not subjective. I think Concious is more broad because it includes Political messages too. If anything Political Hip-hop is under this category--Samil20 13:06, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

npov and significance problems

The significance problem is made clear by the first sentance-- its only a term that refers to a subjective assesment of lyrical content. Perhaps it would go better at wiktionary? The NPOV problem comes in when we start weighing in on whats conscious and whats not.--Urthogie 08:30, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

OK, but to a certain extent all groupings are subjective. This one may be more so than most, but it is a widely used term. So far, we haven't done a "list of conscious hip hop artists" or anything. If NPOV is a big problem, we can keep it that way, and not even attempt to list conscious hip hop artists. Λυδαcιτγ 00:23, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it's obvious to see what is concious and what isnt. There is a big seperation within the hip-hop community between "backpackers" and "mainstream"--Samil20 13:10, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

Linking

It would make sense for articles on the listed artists to include a link to this article! — DIV (128.250.204.118 04:41, 2 June 2007 (UTC))

Violent rappers labeled as conscious

Is it wrong to put a rapper or rap group with very often hardcore, violent lyrics, such as Jedi Mind Tricks, in this section? I'm a big fan of Jedi Mind Tricks but I recognize a higher than average amount of gun references and overall violent lyrics in their music, especially from Violent By Design to Legacy of Blood. --hasafienda 07:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree. There's a difference between conscious hip-hoppers and artists with occasionally conscious lyrics/songs. Along the same lines, Metallica wrote ballads (Unforgiven), but we wouldn't put them in any sort of soft rock category because of those exceptions to the rule. EVERY hip-hopper at one point or another wrote a song with conscious lyrics or that was trying to deliver a message. The list should be limitted to artists who were predominately or known for their conscious style. TribeCalledQuest 12:06, 18 October 2007 (UTC)

List

Although we eliminated the huge overall list (which was a good move, I believe), we're slowly gathering a new list of artists who are "conscious", but have had mainstream success. Is Kanye really socially conscious? No sourcing is given. Is there any way to make this more objective? Tiger Khan (talk) 15:34, 10 July 2008 (UTC)

I eliminated the list. It did little to improve the article and was sure to grow to overwhelm the substance of the article, much as the previous list did. If anyone has any particular reason why this shouldn't have been done/has real criteria on how to define who makes the list, please tell me. Tiger Khan (talk) 04:45, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested Move

Conscious hip-hop sounds kind of stupid to me. As someone else said, "what's the alternative, unconscious hip-hop?" I don't think that people have anything else in mind except social consciousness (I don't see any mentions of meditation hip-hop or some other discussion of the conscious), so why not actually call it this? It would define the subject matter more effectively. Thoughts? Tiger Khan (talk) 04:49, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

Regardless of how it sounds to you, the genre is generally referred to as "Conscious hip-hop"--Darknus823 (talk) 17:25, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I suppose as much. Socially conscious hip hop is also heavily referenced, however: http://books.google.com/books?client=firefox-a&um=1&spell=1&q=%22socially+conscious%22+hip+hop&btnG=Search+Books Tiger Khan (talk) 20:34, 16 July 2008 (UTC)

I see that this has been nominated to merge with hip hop; I would argue that it would better be merged into alternative hip hop. Either way, "conscious hip hop" is a stupidly pretentious term that I'd be loathe to use. 70.48.251.209 (talk) 23:01, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

Merge

This article needs to be merged (unless someone wants to try improving it and reargue for keeping it). But, the articles on Hip Hop and Hip Hop music dont have sections this would fit into well at all. My best idea (which i have been discussing at my talk page with another editor concerned with placement) is Political hip hop, which already links to it, and which tries to separate political hip hop from conscious hip hop. i think the two can exist together, with conscious being a subsection. Any other ideas?Mercurywoodrose (talk) 05:00, 22 July 2011 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Conscious hip hop/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

2Pac should defiantly be on the the list. I mean with songs like "Ghetto Gospel", "Thugz Mansion", "Life Goes On", "One Day At A Time" and "No More Pain", as well as the other's already mentioned, he is one of the most important conscious hip-hop artists ever. Eminem should also be considered. But Kanye West should not be mentioned in this article. --Nojoy 02:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Last edited at 02:58, 21 February 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 12:12, 29 April 2016 (UTC)