Hip Hop World News, BBC Four

Didn't watch it. Was watching Luke Cage on Netflix instead, which is the most hip hop drenched, Black experience-reflecting TV event I think I've ever seen (a bullet proof Black man in the year of Black Lives Matter!). Will check out the rap doc though. Who produced it?

This is going to be long, moany and overly verbose, so let me deal with the positives first. Rodney P was a great presenter, and I'd watch him fronting anything else like this in the blink of an eye. Someone give him a regular gig somewhere. Also, Estelle provided some real horse sense when she said, "listen to the stuff you like and don't bother with the stuff you don't like". A great idea. Let's hope it catches on amongst that irritating breed of rap conservative who thinks anyone gives a shiny shite what he (it's always a he) thinks about Kanye West.

Now, the thing I kept thinking about afterwards was Rodney's comment about how hip-hop "gave a voice to the voiceless", only for the film to then set off on a path which implied it no longer does this. If you're soundtracking footage of the Ferguson protests with NWA's Fuck The Police rather than Lil Boosie's Fuck The Police - a completely different song which became a de facto anthem for those protests - you're essentially speaking to people who haven't listened to rap in 20-odd years, and whose frame of reference is limited to things like gangsta rap at its most showbiz. 

You're presuming the majority of your audience knows the sum total of fuck-all squared about the music and so needs to be told about Rapper's Delight yet again. You're also presuming that nobody watching would either know nor care about current rappers with plenty to say who also happen to be hugely popular with people who, y'know, actually listen to rap. That's as opposed to the carpetbagging rock critics seeking a nostalgia fix for their days as student radicals, who these films so often seem to be speaking to; if indeed they're not actually written and made by them.

Also, if giving a voice to the voiceless is one of rap's unique strengths, why was so much of the film taken up by old dudes trying to proscribe what language the young'uns should be using with that voice? I'm not about to tell any black person that they oughtn't to find the proliferation of n-bombs in current rap music objectionable. But rap is youth music, and for better or worse, this is the language the youngsters use. Their job isn't to seek the approval of so-called academics or self-appointed "elders" like Lord Jamar. Speaking of whom, I'd have loved to know how much of his interview got left on the cutting room floor, given some of the less than liberal opinions he's know for espousing. Furthermore, do the Tone Police ever stop to consider what else might be passing them by while they're busy counting n-words?

Of course, there's always plenty of room in these things for the notion that rap should be capital-P political, as well as for endless laments of how this notion has seemingly been abandoned by its present day exponents, which brings us back to "voice for the voiceless" again. It appears there are lots of people who object to rap's current constituency telling their stories the way they want. To quote KRS, why is that? A rapper like Kendrick (who I love) will routinely get a pass from (some) old heads and (many) day-tripping hacks alike because the way he presents himself adheres to the widely-accepted narrative of what rap is supposed to be. But many of those same people will ignore someone like Vince Staples, who makes no secret of his gang affiliations, refuses to apologise for them, rhymes about the life in a totally non-judgemental way and challenges the listener to find the quote-unquote message themselves without having someone to hold their hand throughout the entire process. It'd be good  to see the representation of women in rap dealth with in something other than the same binary terms as ever. Why not go talk to someone like Tink or Junglepussy or Lady Leshurr or Young M.A. or Kash Doll or Katie Got Bandz or even CupcakKe if you really want to get a handle on how broad a range of ways in which female rappers are expressing themselves right now?

Hardly anybody ever thinks to mention that Rakim, the ne plus ultra of "conscious" rap, appeared on the front cover of his first album wearing snide Gucci and draped in loads of tom, while on the back cover he's pictured alongside some of the most notorious and mythologised gangsters, drug-dealers and murderers of the era. What he had to say about withdrawing from the front line of rap because he no longer felt there was an audience for the kind of music he was making was interesting, but that assertion's not really true. 

What's changed is that fewer people, whether creators or consumers, are concerned with old-school ideas about how the music should be made; this "real hip-hop" notion that there's a "correct" way to do it, which has inadvertently led to some of the most boring rap music in the entire history of the form. There's still as much coded language in new rap as there is in a vintage Rakim song. There are still rappers innovating in terms of lyrics, concepts, rhyme structure, flows and delivery, and there are metric fucktons of sonic innovations in the music. After all, rap is the only popular musical form that is still developing and moving forward - much 2016 rap barely even resembles the stuff that was hitting 10 years ago. There is still plenty of substance to what rappers rhyming about, if you're willing to put the work in and you can bear to hear stories that might make you feel uncomfortable, told in language you might find unpleasant, and don't just want a cultural studies lecture set to music. Remember, this stuff isn't made with you in mind, and it's under no obligation to meet your moral or aesthetic standards.

The world also moved on long ago from the idea that New York City is the centre of the rap universe. The number of rappers to have emerged from the five boroughs this century who've gone on to have a significant impact on the music as a whole can be counted on not much more than the fingers of one hand. If you're making a documentary about rap in 2016 that completely ignores the South (particularly Atlanta and Houston) and to a lesser extent Oakland, you're not making a rap documentary at all; you're producing an exercise in nostalgia that attempts to write the last 20 years of the music's development out of its history.

One dude I'd love to see in a doc like this is Boots Riley of The Coup, who is one of the most vigorously capital-P political rappers there is. He got into the game via the classic community-organiser-turned-rapper route that characterised much of the "message rap" era. But he's also someone who understands better than possibly any of his peers that "gangsta rap" has always existed as a legitimate expression rather than a hideous aberration whipped up in a lab by evil white music execs to suppress black people and take money off white people looking for vicarious thrills. I read an interview with him a couple of years ago where he said something that's stuck with me ever since;

"The way that people survive is what creates their culture. Fishing villages create fishing songs. Not the other way around."

If people are bothered by gangsta rap, then you need to address the social and political conditions in which it's become the most accessible and relatable form of self-expression for so many young black people; "giving a voice to the voiceless", in other words.

  Really hate to take the doddery old bastard line on this one, but there are very good reasons why this well-made and thoroughly enjoyable doc focussed so much on late 80's to mid 90's hip-hop, and ignoring those facts won't change any of them.  The show did make a glaring omission of Outkast, and Southern rap in general, but frankly I could do with forgetting all about the rise of No Limit Records and their seemingly endless roster of grotty herberts towards the end of that decade.

  Personally, I was extremely chuffed to see an interview with the notoriously reclusive Rakim.  And listening to the man recite lines which had inspired him to perform as a youngster, the contrast in his delivery, and the heft behind his words, as well as those of Chuck earlier in the programme - Lord Jamar, perhaps less so - really did place the superstars of today in pretty fucking bleak contrast.  It was genuinely poignant to see Rakim disowning his position within the community, and as is well known, this is not just some revisionist bullshit.  Rakim was indeed asked by his record label to conform to the appetites of the day, and he politely declined.

  I'm glad to see Rodney's getting plenty of credit here and his decision - presumably he was asked - to retain the footage in which he is somewhat overcome with emotion, speaks well of him I thought.

  A brief Sugarhill Gang reminiscence aside, you could well argue that as much history was snipped from the beginning of this story as the end of it.  Fine by me - we call it golden era for a bloody good reason.