Should Hick Hop Exist?

When Blood Is One was still active, all the way back in 2011 (ancient history, right?), I helped connect genius Kenan Bell with up and coming rapper Carl Roe on a song called "Killers," which I still think is dope:


"Killers" didn't seem to take off and Kenan took a break. Carl didn't. I hung out with Carl Roe in the studio and he had a black friend with him. However, as racial conflict heated up in this country, he seemed to retrograde in to his white identity. Many of the posts he had on Facebook, which led to conflict with friends of his, led to me unfriending him. All respect to my man, his full lengths just seemed a whole world away from what he did with Kenan and more than a bit white friendly.

As Murs said, this stuff goes really deep - life is so difficult that it may be hard to cope with it without dealing some resentments. There are overt cues within some of these hick hop songs of something people who want to keep their soul clean should avoid. All sorts of rappers have voiced their resentment against women or other loved ones in their lives but it's not accepted to voice racism.

There is a whole movement of hick hop and, while guys like Yelawolf respect black culture (how could he not when he is mixed Native American ancestry and has mixed race kids?), these white rappers don't. Kid Rock, for whatever reason, has gone full tilt in to this world and alot of these "hick hop" guys seem full blown Trumpian. I'm not sure how someone can be like that and mimick black music and, frankly, I don't want to find out. Hip-hop is black music, period.