Hip hop vs. Rap.

I've finally figured it out. 

Those who know me most know that I love hip-hop. The real and raw yet soulful music. The music that makes you bob your head and feel the beat, feel it, in every bone in your body. That's real music, hip hop, not rap. I've been trying to explain to people for so long that there is a difference between the two. They aren't synonymous in any way, shape, or form. While watching my favorite movie, Brown Sugar, a line hit the nail right on the head and I couldn't have said it better myself.

"So what's the difference between rap and hip hop? It's simple. It's like sayin' you love somebody and bein' in love with somebody. Rap is only a word."

If I need to point it out, hip hop is falling in love. And that's what I've done, I've fallen in love with hip-hop and it happens ever single time I watch that movie because I feel it. The minute the movie comes on, it's nothing but instant love and respect for the game.

But things have changed.

I obviously wasn't born during the prime of hip hop and I wasn't able to comprehend and fathom the affects it would have on me but I do know that it moves me like no other genre. I don't walk around like a "hip hop head", I don't go around quoting KRS-One, Slick Rick,Wu-Tang Clan, A Tribe Called Quest or Public Enemy, but hop hip mos def runs through my blood. Did you catch that? ;)

As much as people have been saying that hip hop is dead these past few years, there is some truth to that. Hip hop isn't dead completely, Mos Def and Erykah still doing their thing. It's endangered. Rap has completely taken over and what I mean by rap is, Wiz, Lil Boosie, Lil Wayne, (all the Lils) and freakin' Soulja Boy! People don't wanna hear good music anymore, they don't want soul, they don't want a story. But I guess that's what happens as time happens. A new generation has taken over, a generation that I honestly wish I wasn't a part of, and rap came with that territory. This music now ain't got anything on hip hop! You can't make hip hop, it makes you. It's born in you. Rap, you can make that all day with anybody. Hip hop aint nothing to to replicated, either it is or it ain't.

When did I fall in love with hip hop? When mama played the Lauryn Hill record over and over and I learned every word to every song. When Erykah Badu ripped it in her "Love of my Life" video, her ode to hip hop. When Mos Def free-styled because it was too live. When did I fall in love with hip hop?

I'm still falling...