Bad Hip Hop Journalism? Nothing New, But Worse Than You Think

September 24, 2015

The topic of hip hop journalism has been e-buzzing for the past couple of days, in response to an opinion piece published on a major media website, which, using examples to back up the writer’s somewhat valid, but uninspiring (and rather aggressive) opinion, mentioned a couple of journeymen veteran rap artists by name. Said artists responded through Twitter, to say, basically, “Keep my name out yo’ mouth,” lamenting the depths “hip hop journalists” will go to purposefully stir up controversy for page views and social media chatter.

You can find it all pretty easily if you want.

Of course, the devolved state of hip hop journalism is hardly new. However, as I have often remarked, what makes it worse in regards to hip hop music and culture is a deafening lack of substantive journalism to counter the drivel delivered by the masses.

Since it was a good time to join in on a trending topic, many jumped on the anti-bad-rap journalism social-media-outrage bandwagon, forcing the EIC of the offending media outlet to defend the piece, and their practice in general, even while slightly throwing their writer under the bus in the process.

While each side had proponents and detractors, few responses I came across were particularly eloquent about the bigger picture, or adequately explained the extent of the damage that the current state of hip hop journalism can cause, aside from tailoring their comments to this type or argument-bait.

Fact is, I have been pointing out the flaws of hip hop journalism for years, with a thoroughness that far exceeds the schoolyard taunting, blog-on-blog name-calling we are seeing folks gravitate to in the last few days.

So, partially to (selfishly) remind people that there are those of us (me) who have been fighting this fight with a great deal of perseverance, integrity and insight for years, but partially to continue to fight that fight by calling attention to ALL the ways that media businesses, external AND hip hop’s own, have been egregiously failing hip hop music and culture for quite some time, I present to all those interested, a brief history of me calling out hip hop journalism.

You know. Before it got trendy.