Hip-Hop at a Crossroads
Hip-Hop Did the Work This Summer in Ways You Didn’t Realize
Bemoaning the lack of protest anthems misses the point: What we need from artists has changed
Update 6/7/22: Level has a new home. You can read this article and other new articles by visiting LEVELMAN.com.
As the summer of 2020 draws to close, it’s clear the world has changed in unprecedented ways. A pandemic, its ensuing economic fallout, and a broad-based racial justice movement — not to mention the toxic, repressive administration that serves as their backdrop — have disrupted our lives in ways we scarcely could have imagined. If ever there was a moment for hip-hop to realize its promise as a political and cultural corrective, it’s this one. Throughout the week, LEVEL will be publishing stories that examine the summer of 2020 through the lens of hip-hop — from its relationship to the world at large to its own structural issues.
The idea of a “revolution” is at once an echo and a prophecy among Black folks. It’s legend foretold by our understanding of how race functions in America and where we have always headed. To be Black is to be in constant conversation with questions like “what would you have done during slavery?” or “would you have been nonviolent during the…
