KARASLAMB | 5/21/14 | Okayplayer

Questlove digs deep into the VULTURE mail bag to answer the questions below his preceding pieces in the 5th installment of the 6-part series entitled How Hip-Hop Failed Black America. His answers address everything from art and commerce to insult and indifference. Though no answer is necessarily guaranteed to solve the problems of anyone fundamentally opposed to the series, Questo does a great job of providing a lovingly crafted set of footnotes for the original articles. Most importantly, he talks the finer points of risk taking within a genre that has historically found some of its artists erring on the side of tried and true staples like bottle popping and swagger jacking musical trends in order to maintain chart placement and/or some semblance of relevance. Ensuring one’s place in the spotlight on those particular terms is often done to the detriment of any real stake in individuality or true creative license. As artists fail to test the waters and take the genre in different directions, they run the risk of dying inside of the categorical boxes they have placed themselves in, in order to survive. Even worse, are the fans that manage to perish inside of those boxes with them. Though Questo professes to have no miraculous cure-all for the problems affecting hip-hop culture, he’s at least got some pretty thoughtful responses to some of the questions aimed at his literary series. 

>> READ SOME OF HIS ANSWERS ON OKAYPLAYER.COM