Hip-hop wasn’t always like this. Old-school artists like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five gave gritty portrayals of life in the ghetto that were far from glamorous.

Contrary to the entire Cash Money catalog of records, there is nothing glamorous about the ghetto.

Yet rap artists continue to promote and glorify guns, crack and a materialistic lifestyle that the average listener could never afford. Through their music videos, these artists allow people to justify selling drugs, gangbanging or buying outside their means.

But hip-hop wasn’t always like this. Old-school artists like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five gave gritty portrayals of life in the ghetto that were far from glamorous in classics like “The Message” and “White Lines (Don’t Do It).”

Today, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Dead Prez, Common and Outkast, among others, put out honest insight into life in the inner city that inform, rather than glorify, what is going on. This has led them to be labeled “conscious” rap artists.

There are plenty of artists in hip-hop who are conscious of what is at stake when they glorify the ghetto life, but the high-profile rap superstars don’t seem to have a clue. Fifty Cent is popular because he was a crack dealer and was shot nine times, selling bootleg “Scarface” stories to the delight of the general public. Fat Joe has taken this idea to a pathetic extreme, as he has begun calling himself “Joe Crack” and releasing a popular single about a romanticized vision of crack dealing.

Looking at the rap played on MTV, it is nearly impossible to find one consistently-played artist who challenges listeners to look around and try to better themselves outside of Kanye West. If the positive hip-hop acts were played more often, rap would have a different image and gain back some of the social preoccupations present in its roots.

The CEOs of record companies are just as much to blame. They have force-fed the public this music, controlling play lists and advertising. If they did this with positive hip-hop, it may be just as popular.

Some acts have managed to brake this fluff-oriented pattern. Kanye West had the No. 1 record in America for several weeks, and Outkast’s “Speakerboxx/The Love Below” won the Grammy for album of the year in 2004.

It is not that all hip-hop has to be positive. Gangsta rap can be really entertaining and tells stories that the media never reports in interesting ways. With that in mind, Capone and Noreaga, who called themselves CNN, had one called “The War Report.”

The rub lies in that there are lots of people who hear these “war reports” and want to live that lifestyle. A friend of mine told me about a co-worker who’s in a gang and who had his fourth brother shot and killed recently. My friend said he acted like it was no big deal and was complacent. He has basically become numb to losing a family member.

Of course, it isn’t like he heard Tupac and thought he needed to join a gang, but when society keeps getting these words and images thrown at them constantly, it becomes part of a collective subconscious that forces people downward.

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