Hiphop Vs America

I watched “Hip Hop Vs America” on YouTube the other day, a segment on BET about the controversy surrounding hip hop and asking if hip hop has lost its value/meaning over the years due to excessive commercialization. My favorite quote on the panel was from Dr Michael Eric Dyson, a Georgetown University Professor, who said:

“The litmus test for the authenticity of a particular artistic expression can never be the people who consume it. It has to be the issue of what you intend and therefore what its impact is. When you think about the fact that the institution of crime is America, the Kennedy’s, the famous families, the major capitalistic empires of American society predicated upon deceit, thievery, mendacity, and ribbon folk awe, hip hop at its best certainly will articulate something against that, but at its worst it reflects the very pathology of American society”.