It’s been two nights since Donald Trump was elected President of The United States of America. This is momentous for a couple of reasons. That the U.S. saw fit to elect someone who ran a campaign of exclusion over inclusion; that we so misunderstood a large swath of the electorate; that what happens outside our bubbles is more like 1958 than 2016; that what lay beneath the winning smiles of some of our friends and allies has been a reason to hate us all along. It’s disheartening. But I want to say that music, and hip-hop especially, has a way forward from here.
It’s been an amazing decade for this music. Before, the music industry was a hierarchy. Only the top selling artists lived at the top of that pyramid. Now, music is more like a biosphere. There are several different environments to visit. So many different voices to hear. Thoughts to think. Emotions to feel. It’s a special time to be alive and listening, whether with pleasure or disgust, at what’s on the radio, on television, on the web and in our minds.
Where do we go from here?
I believe the rest of this decade will be extraordinary for music, musicians and fans. Troubled times almost always bring out the best in our artists. And with the way things are going, troubled times might be ahead. But with more urgency, I think the consumer will be better in the coming months and years.
Let’s face it, we’ve been awful for a long time now. And there’s something in the air. People, I think, are realizing that we’ve been escapist. We’ve been somehow missing, and now it’s time to be a little more thoughtful to our musicians, a little more present. I think people might even start paying for physical music again, whenever they can, but I think that music will gain more meaning than it has in a while. We, the listeners, the addicts, the people, will ask for more and I think we will get it.
Not just from our conscious music, mind you, but from all our music. Trump's win has galvanized our community in numerous ways, and music will follow suit. For some, this may bring back a stress on community issues being presented in music, which they crave. I’m hoping that while artists continue to stay as diverse as they want to be that they can also help us process what’s going on.
We're already headed there
Photo: Giphy
We’re off to a great start. As if almost sensing something, and faced with police shootings and social change, artists have already made music in the past two years that almost predicts the emotions we’re going through now. J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar, Scarface, Rihanna, Beyoncé, Solange, Noname, Jamila Woods, Vince Staples, Drake, Kanye West and many others have made music that speaks to the despair of being other in America. That otherness seems to now be spreading if the articles around day one of Trump can be believed.
Those feelings will intensify, bringing great art with them. And as the pendulum swings that way, we’ll still have the gritty aspirational realism of trap. We’ll have artists springing forth to talk about what it’s like to be 20, to be 40. We’ll have reunions and surprises. It’ll be a good time to be a listener.
And, as listeners, we might start to give back more than we did before. Because it all means so much more now.
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