With all the divisiveness being displayed in the media and the streets of America, I thought that now would be a perfect time to remind everyone about the things we all share in common. One of these things being the music we listen to. Hip Hop is breaking racial and cultural boundaries in today’s youth like never before and the examples of this are now prevalent in American culture.
I’ll start with the music we all listen too. If you turn on your radio right now and switch to the poppiest station I can guarantee that you hear at least one rap song or one hip hop influenced beat before the commercials hit. This is not surprising as according to Nielsen Music, Hip Hop has become America’s most popular genre of music. This might be due to how people, in particular the youth, consume their music nowadays. There’s a new rap album to listen to every week that we have instant access to at all times thanks to streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music. Because of this everyone is constantly exposed to different artists and sounds that may be culturally foreign to some individuals.
This is why you see kids from the suburbs mimicking a dance move made by the Migos or hitting the whip. Everyone feels they’re a part of hip hop culture because it’s accessible to everyone now. Even these viral dance videos on social media are examples of how the culture is spreading. Hip hop isn’t referred to as flat out ignorant or dangerous to middle america like it was 20 years ago because they’re constantly exposed to it now.
Hip hop culture has even expanded globally with artists like Rich Chigga making waves in the States while he’s originally from China. Iggy Azalea is another example of the globalization of hip hop. You couldn’t tell someone in the 90’s that this new rapper from Australia is going to do numbers in a hip hop scene in the US. But now things have changed. They’re breaking the mold of what a traditional hip hop artist looks like and in doing so they break the mold of the traditional hip hop listener. This is a new era of hip hop in which everyone can find their way to fit in and I believe that the trend will only continue to grow from here. I just hope that the country as a whole trends in the same direction.
