𝑫𝑬𝑨𝑻𝑯𝑩𝑳𝑶𝑾

if hiphop weren't real its existence would sound like an exceptionally heavy-handed metaphor about racism from a really cringe didactic fantasy novel. yeah the racialized underclass in this society, the one that's constantly derided by the ethnic majority as stupid and anti-intellectual, they have a complex artistic tradition based around improvisational poetry which is sometimes enacted on a competitive basis for dispute resolution. you get judged based on the subtlety of your wordplay and the complexity of your internal rhyme schemes. the dominant group periodically gets mad about how this doesn't count as real art like their own objectively more simplistic music and poetry because sometimes it has swears in it

add in how the practitioners of this tradition often have encyclopedic knowledge of the music of the dominant group and deploy it within their own music, and the dominant group while dismissing the artistry of it still utilizes the music of the racialized underclass to immediately convey cultural coolness

Sade Adu in Alaïa top and Rifat Ozbek trousers. i-D October 1995.