Hip-hop has traditionally been viewed and presented as the renegade “outsider” artform—at it’s purest, a non-commercial expression of creativity born in strife. Even at its most commodified, it’s sold as more real and more rebellious. But in reality, this culture fueled an industry, and that industry is rife with the standard trappings of wealth and power. Hip-hop is expression; but as with all things infected with capital and agendas, hip-hop can become oppression. While rockin’ to the bang-bang boogie, fighting the power and turnin’ up for the past 45 years, has hip-hop ever cared who got crushed or silenced under its global ascent?

Like any cultural phenomenon, hip-hop cannot move forward without evolving. That much is certain. When discussing art and music, evolution typically means pushing said art/music forward creatively; but we are at a cultural crossroads that demands that hip-hop evolves ideologically. For so long, we’ve championed this sound and attitude as the voice for young Black and brown men who have historically been marginalized. No doubt: that has always been a part of its power. But have we given true voice to our community in a way that allows us all to see and hear ourselves in hip-hop? It’s been said that hip-hop was the first music since the blues in which Black men spoke to Black men—but when the genre is held up as the voice for Black people, that becomes the worst kind of erasure. And we’ve seen the cultural folly of pushing Black women and LGBTQ people to the margins. Hip-hop is inadequate, even as an expression, if it only exists to promote a narrow, singular point of view.