MF Grimm, MF Doom, and the Aftermath of Hip Hop

My boy Victor LaValle sent me this rather amazing piece on MF Grimm:

Voice Article Here

We both met Grimm at NYC Comicon '06. Grimm is also doing a graphic novel at Vertigo, illustrated by the amazing Ron Wimberly who did my covers for Papa Midnite. I found Grimm to be very polite, humble, but also a clearly weighted soul—and I'm not just saying that because of his wheelchair.

The Voice essay is about his life, but in Grimm's life you can also see a clear metaphor for the aftermath of hip-hop culture. The normalization of the inner-city drug epidemic, the acceptance of sociopathic violence, the immorality of the music industry: all of the ills of the hip hop era are visible here in the experiences MF Grimm has endured.

And in his more famous friend, MF Doom, we see the continuing damages pop culture success can have on African American mental health. Although I really enjoy Doom's music, it seems from his interview that the brother has lost his mind.

When future generations look back on us, will we be revered for the creative brilliance of hip hop culture? Or will be judged for our general inaction against the mysogyny, violence, materialism and minstrel shows the hip hop movement has produced so much of? I really don't know.

There are some among us who still dismiss the latest wave of criticism of hip hop from the generation of the New Black Aesthetic as proof that the old heads have really gotten old. But perhaps it's something else. Perhaps it is just that we, the first descendents of hip hop, are the first generation fully qualified to be critical of it. Our problem, therefor, is not that we oldheads "don't get it." Rather, our problem is that we do.