Hip-hop is consciously ugly, nihilistic, and communicates the menace of thuggery. It is a challenge to a physical fight, and dares anyone to shut it up. It celebrates illiteracy, "Blacklish" and "Ebonics." It has the esthetics of a pile driver, but there's an excuse for a pile driver making an ear-splitting racket. It discards or eschews music – never mind melody – and gives the middle finger to any kind of civilized discourse. This article argues for "conservatives" to "get with it" and nod their heads in time with the monotonous beat while some punk is shouting obscenities into their ears and move like jerky automatons. No, hip-hop isn't Rachmaninoff, or
Offenbach, or even the Beatles. It doesn't even try to say that it's the equal of those genres. It simply rejects them. It's a nightstick pounding one's head to a pulp. This article is a pathetic and desperate attempt to make conservatism
"relevant," but what it really is, is a surrender to barbarism.

Excellent summary of Hip-hop. FPM seems to have a real blind spot here, somehow mistaking the success of these gangsta rappers for an affirmation of capitalism. It's actually more like the intersection of a culture not only in decline but actually at the breaking point with the remnants of a free market.

Thank you. The widespread popularity of hip-hop is disturbing wherever it is played (the US, UK, etc.), whether it's played by blacks or whites or Asians. The genre is more malevolent than was the Grateful Dead phenomenon. or any of that style's spinoffs and copycats. The lyrics of hip-hop are irrelevant; imagine the Declaration of Independence done in hip-hop. It's also significant that many Muslim wannabe jihadists communicate their nihilism in hip-hop (because Islam frowns on music, I guess they think that hip-hop doesn't qualify as music; on that point the wannabes would be correct).

(C)rap, not "hip-hop. It is in no way music.

Amen!

Well said. There is nothing redeeming about hiphop, musically or otherwise. It is a hostile form of rhythmic expression that makes those who dislike it hostile when they hear it. It is kind of a "musical" dhimmitude.

Anti-Whites decided EVERY White country should be a “melting pot”!

I didn’t. My people didn’t, there was no public voting on this.

So why do they have the moral authority to flood my people with millions of non-White immigrants, then FORCE assimilate these non-Whites with my people until we become minorities in our own homes?
Why isn’t Africa, or Asia, or the Middle east a “melting pot”.

If all this “diversity” and “multiculturalism” is so good, why keep it for EVERY and ONLY White countries?

Anti-racist is a codeword for anti-White.

Very good comments. "Life imitates art far more than art imitates life." -Oscar Wilde Sad, very sad.

Thank you. I left a similar comment on the first part of this travesty, and was attacked by some Loonwatch troll who questioned my right to judge hip-hop. He grew very nasty.

fck the loon...why are we being subjected to this degree of shot here?

Hip-Hop is the sound of militant ignorance.

Reading those lyrics, obviously produced from minds that border on retardation, it is hard to hard to believe FPM has bought into this. Everything about hip hop; the way it is "sung", the street thug tone, the thundering bass, is sickening.

You probably go out at night wearing a white hood and burn a cross.

While there is some good rap music out there, this author makes no attempt to bring any of it to light. Instead he grabs snippets of some of the most objectionable babble from some of the most objectionable people. The message of self empowerment has been lost and replaced by an unending chorus of vice, ignorance, disrespect, violence, objectification, materialism, bragadociousness, and other unsavory characteristics. Music can be used to educate and enlighten people, but instead, in the case of hip hop it has been used to cripple people. It has been used to allow people to have low standards of literacy and morality. A relative few persons have become individually wealthy by selling out their so called communities. Media and entertainment conglomerates reap the majority of the spoils from these unsavory productions, while being ensured of continued masses of ignorant consumers addicted to their product. The author suggests that Oreilly should think again - I have, and I find his premise woefully wanting...

Great, and truthful comments. The language espoused in Rap "Music" is minimum wage language.

It's actually Welfare Language.

There is NO good (C)rap (not music) out there. NONE.

Never asked you, go fudge yourself...

Rap is the heart of CRap.

Thanks for proving my point about the narcissism of hiphop. There are more "I's" and "me's" in these lyrics than in an Obama speech.

Ronn is neither a conservative, nor even a libertarian. He's a caricature of what Progressives believe conservatives to be: someone who celebrates self-obsessed narcissistic ambition as the greatest good and who believes that all liberals are welfare-dependent parasites.
In Ronn's deranged worldview, George Soros and Bill and Hillary Clinton should be embraced by conservatives because they're wealthy, self-obsessed, narcissistic, and ambitious.

Bang on!

Ronn is a self-absorbed, pusher of shit, it is what he does for a living...as soon as he has spewed enough of his pro-hip-hop shit here, he will delve ears deep into some hip hop recording shit's ass and come out, shit on shoulders, with a new contract.

FUCK YOU RONN AND IF FPM KEEPS THIS SHIT UP, I AM NOT RETURNING TO THIS SITE.

WITH HIM AND KLEIN OF LATE THIS IS BECOMING A PROGRESSIVE FREAK SHOW!

Twice this week, FPM has published short pieces by Ronn Torossian celebrating Jay-Z and Hip-Hop, and twice we the FPM readership have responded with blistering criticism. This should have caused the FPM editors to re-think the premises that led them to believe Torossian's panegyrics were worth publishing in the first place, but instead, they seem determined to try to persuade us to change our minds. As the reaction to this current "editorial" demonstrates, it isn't working. Therefore, I ask the editors now to re-think their premises on this issue, and in an attempt to help I'd like to suggest where the problem lies.

First, the material success of Jay-Z and his ilk, which are indeed the products of a semi-free economy, while they vindicate the free market do not vindicate the artistic ideals or methods behind the Hip-Hop movement, much less the values behind those ideals. It merely indicates that people who lack an educated taste (mainly callow youngsters who don't know much about anything) have the freedom to spend their money foolishly. The proper Conservative reaction to this spectacle should be, "Yes, people have the right to spend their money on Hip-Hop, but for God's sake let's see if we can educate them so they no longer want to."

What we are seeing here is the intersection of a culture not only in decline but actually at the breaking point with the remnants of a free market. Celebrating Hip-Hop for its material success is much like celebrating
the millions that might be made from modern-day gladitorial games in
which men kill each other as a spectator sport. What would be the proper reaction to such gladitorial games? First, shock and horror at the appalling disregard for the value of the individual human life; Second, a clear and positive moral conviction that such games were wrong; Third, a determination to enact laws that would prevent such evil from taking place. I've emphasized the ordinals here because the order is important; first comes value judgment, second comes moral conviction, and only last comes the explicitly political response of a law.

And this is the reason why politics are downstream of culture - they depend on values precedent to both. It is why Hip-Hop is the product of the ghetto where life has little value, and why the resulting politics are those of the anti-individualistic Welfare State. And it is why even if we were to concede that Conservatives must embrace a "big-tent" philosophy (an idea popular with Establishment, i.e. moderately statist, Republicans, be it noted), we cannot embrace Hip-Hop. To do so would be as fatal as to embrace Big Government, for just as the government cannot both grow larger and smaller at the same time, so too the culture of the inner city cannot both become more elevated and more base at the same time.

In short, Hip-Hop is a product of the same values that have brought poverty, misery, and permanent welfare statism to the inner-city. Conservatism means the conservation of certain values, particularly the worth of the individual life, which leads to the conservation of classic liberalism in politics. Therefore, Conservatives cannot accept Hip-Hop as part of our culture any more than we can accept the Knockout Game as a permanent fixture of the public streets or socialism in our political life.

I could consider a rapper a conservative if his/her songs were about
-cleaning up their neighborhoods
-getting an education
-making an honest living
-raising decent families
-self sufficiency
-celebrating personal/civic pride, work ethic and responsibility

Unfortunately, that's not as "cool" as rapping about bling, cars, drugs, 'hoes, strip clubs, violence and who is the "baddest thug".

THANK YOU VERY MUCH!! Your comments are very much appreciated by me. Last week was too much and I hope the editors will not repeat this again. I will have to reconsider their ideology of the editors. Are they trying to deceive their readers by their support of Hip Hop? If they personally like Hip Hop, then that's their choice. I wonder why they keep pushing it on their readers?

I don't know, unless they've embraced the truly weird idea that Republicans can somehow use Hip-Hop to persuade low-information, welfare-seeking inner-city voters to pull the lever for our side. Anyway, thanks for your kind words.

wtf is this BS? This hiphop crap has been going on for twenty years and is directly responsible for the mess the american culture has become. Fk Off!

35yrs. in the old days it was good. now the good ones are unheard.

It was never good.

depends. if you lke gospol & spoken word you may like oldskool hiphop. its a matter of taste.

Memo to FPM: Hip - Hop also celebrates drug use, abusing women and stomping on your enemies. FYI.

This is uplifting? Bitches, niggas, fuck that? FPM has lost its bloody mind. Let me try to use those words and see how many people call it uplifting. If Paula Deen can't use the word "nigger" one time twenty years ago without being vilified and destroyed then why does Jay Z get to say "nigga" with every breath? And don't give me any garbage about them being two different words. Six year olds are listening to this cRAP.
We can all see the wonderful results of the hip-hop culture. All we have to do is look at the inner city of any major metropolis in the US. Your doing a great job of selling your filth there, Jay-Z, just like you did a great job of selling drugs there. This argument is insane.
Louis Armstrong is rolling over in his grave.
And I'm really sick and tired of this stupid big tent argument. We already have a big tent. We welcome conservatives of all races, colors and creeds.

Fuck off already and take your hiphop trash with you.

These rappers represent Conservatism? Yeah, right.

They are a symptom of a culture that has slipped into the gutter, reduced to juvenile boasting about superficial and often destructive things like bling (Jewelry), needlessly fancy cars, drug dealing, strip clubs, how many women that said rapper can nail, "busting caps" aka shooting at people and who is in general, the "baddest thug in town".

Garbage!!!!!!!!!

This is truly beneath FPM. In what way is this foulness at all relevant to Conservatism?

I'm as puzzled as you. It seems FPM has mistaken the financial success that results from pandering to the lowest conceivable tastes for a sort of cultural renaissance in the 'hood. They also seem to commit the Libertarian error of believing that politics can be successfully divorced from a wider system of values. Conservatives are supposed to understand this error.

at least it was well written for people w/some intellect. its ok for FP if only for debate. still a far cry from the tabloid trash i see here: everyday FP & TR are doing the TMZ/ National enquier shuffle. "muslim kisses horse..." "cher says....." "miley snuggles justin...." "courtney sees plane...." "moochie has vaginal crease..." & the latest vulgar "steve tylers girlfriends horriffic abortion while he snorts coke...."!! the problem here is that there are too many demographics mixed together. daniel greenfield calls it "different messages for different people", but this crap i refer too is for the illiterate population. i dont mean ronns artical, im ok w/it. your online zines need 2 websights. i wont send any friends to front page or truth revolt. NOT because of the hip hop artical, but because of the tabloid junk. i do send videos of glasov's speeches, glasov gang, ben shapiro, horowitz. as for daniel greenfield i send people to sultan knish. i havnt a clue of how to show friends david horowitz material as its on the same site as the vulgar garbage. maybe heritage foundation is too cheap to get another domain? TR can really be cheesy, put it on another site. as for the hiphop, i think thats just a way to get the left wing kids to turn right. i could write it better, & try to bridge the urban w/the suburban mid & n. west .

im hiring, spell checker, typist. interested? seeking low to mid level workers. i do the thinking, you do the type. let me know.

I have been following this site for several years. This is the worst article I have read yet. While some prominent rap & hip-hop artists may be shrewd, possess business savvy and dare I say, have talent, the bottom line is that this industry has contributed to the moral decay of our country for the past three decades. The bulk of this music promotes misogyny, racism, drugs, crime and hedonism way more than the edgy rock n roll of my generation. Hardly the American dream. This writer should write for Rolling Stone, where people might buy his nonsense.

Ronn Torossian apparently represents the predatory head of the "Girls Gone Wild" franchise.

Disgraceful. Frontpage embraces a sleazy porn promoter who demands that we learn from his vision of "conservatism," one that apparently includes porn empires and rappers screeching slurs.

A google name search is very illuminating. or maybe this is a different Ronn Torossian -- if that's the case, so very sorry.

I think it's the same guy - I really didn't know how seamy his business was until today. I thought he was just another NY PR-guy. Apparently, he's been pretty lucky in business, and he wrote a few decent articles about how difficult it's getting to do business in NYC, but obviously he's out of his league when it comes to understanding culture and its importance to politics and the overall quality of life.

no, you are correct and you nailed it succinctly.
well done.

maybe torrosian gave a big donation to the heritage fondation. maybe they all help each other. they are all pro isreal, must have some hookup professionally socially, etc.

I can see the FPM writers now "Girls Gone Wild: a conservative response to Hollywood's gay agenda?" which will praise the pornography industry for creating thousands of non-unionized private sector jobs for young women and seeing it as Western civilizations' last line of defence against shariah law. Heck, it "celebrates ambition" and doesn't bow down to "grievance mongers" too! Rupert Murdoch owns stock in pornography companies, so don't underestimate how low some conservatives will be willing to go.

I don't hate rap music, but the pandering here ridiculous (especially with these examples), just what you'd expect from a PR specialist who thinks the problem is with image and not the product itself.

Anything that radical Islam hates has redeeming value.

Just because these low life's brag about how much money they make doesn't make them capitalists. They probably couldn't tell Friedman or Hayek from Felix the cat, and couldn't care less - not to mention Obama's ideology.

You can put lipstick on this PIG but it ain't ever going to fly!
Translation: You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.......

I can't believe that FPM is running this "article" written by Torossian, a professional public relations guy paid by rappers.
Rappers like Jay-Z (who stabbed his brother over jewelry at age 12, and pled down another stabbing charge in 1999) is unrepentant about pushing crack in his youth. And now he pushes psychological crack.

You're a whore, Torossian.