Oh J-Zone, you so fly!

     J-Zone, in his post 5 Things That Killed Hip-Hop, exhibits a great deal of nostalgia toward the 1990's Hip-Hop scene.  In the first half of reason 1, 'Clans, Posses, Crews & Cliques: Who U Wit?' J-Zone claims that one of the reasons for Hip-Hop's decline is the necessity, as an artist, to have a "crew" and constantly collaborate with other artists.  He cites albums by Run DMC and Da Youngstas, as the first groups to do this, explaining that "it worked back then...  but it wound up being a cancer" (Petracca 68).  This type of fondness for the past is very similar to Richard Hoggart's fondness for his childhood displayed in his work The Uses of Literacy.  Hoggard talks about the "traditional working-class culture [of the 1930s being] under threat from the new forms of mass entertainment of the 1950s" (Storey 38).  Storey elaborates on this and explains that while Hoggard was writing the book he said "nostalgia was colouring the material in advance: I have done what I could to remove its effects" (ibid.).  This shows that nostalgia weighed heavily on the works of Hoggart even though he tried to avoid it.  In the introduction to 5 Things That Killed Hip-Hop, J-Zone actually provides an excellent example of how nostalgia can warp our opinions of the past.  He states that "For the record, the politics at major labels, press and radio are not listed here because they've been around since the beginning of time" (Petracca 67) implying that most would look at the past so fondly that they would overlook problems that were already in existence.

    J-Zone began briefly to discuss the idea of "taste" in this work and made some excellent points while doing so.  He explained that what the Hip-Hop industry needs is to chill out.  Not everybody needs to be seen as a drug-dealing thug, with a '64 Cadillac sitting on 26" rims.  It is okay for an artist to have fun with his work and and discuss funny or silly ideas in their lyrics.  There is a great deal of good music out there today, that exhibits artists having a good time, but as J-Zone points out, most of it gets buried within the swarm of thugnificent, gangstalicious, murderizing, hood-music.  When seen in his neighborhood, located down the street from where 50 cent was born, J-Zone was confronted by a fan who proclaimed, "Yo I ain't know you was in it like that, yo why you ain't tryin to pump your shit out here and let people know, you should rep the hood? 50 did it" (Petracca 70).  His response could not have been better.  "Why should I." I completely agree with him; why should he discuss topics that he feels are overused and uninteresting to him.  I, like J-Zone, view music is an escape from everyday life, so if he wanted to write a song about how much he loves unicorns, then why the hell not?