Arrested Development’s Speech Says Hip-Hop is ‘Segregated’ but Balancing Out

Speech Thomas, frontman of legendary hip-hop group Arrested Development, spoke to Rapzilla about a variety of topics from Black Lives Matter to who his favorite emcees are. In part one of the interview, he talked about the group’s new albums and a bit of their history. In this segment of the interview, Speech addresses the rise of gangster rap and the segregation in hip-hop.

In the last article, we left off with A.D. and other conscious rap groups and artists starting to flounder because of the changing industry. The market was starting to be flooded with the next wave of hip-hop, gangster rap. Themes of violence, partying, drugs, and women became THE mainstream rap with everyone else taking a backseat.

It was at that point that Arrested Development began to struggle with record sales and the industry around them. They soon called it quits in 1996 because of their prohibited progress and some conflict in the band.

When asked if being anti-gangster rap is hard among his peers, Speech said, “It’s was very hard and still is hard.”

He said since the beginning of hip-hop there was always an element of “gangster” in it stemming from Ice Tea’s “6 in the Morning” and Schoolly D from Philly who talked about gangster reality.

Speech explained that in the mid-90s, laws were passed that would make monopolies not illegal. This enabled big corporations to program not only radio stations but the local news stations and papers as well.

“These corporations would buy up huge portions of the media and they played a huge part in fazing out conscious hip-hop,” he said. “Our music was going away even though it was changing the lives of many people of color. College enrollment was going up, book sales were up…people were changing and the labels were not finding it as entertaining and were not able to keep it going.”

He continued, “We found ourselves fighting against the labels and because the labels were doing that, they were showing a whole lot of love to gangster hip-hop more-so than conscious. Before, they were showing love to all of it.”

All of a sudden, Nas, Wu Tang, Biggie, and the whole Bad Boys movement were not just celebrated as good music, but as the main music you must listen to and the main thing that was going to be promoted. Speech doesn’t say that to be bitter or angry, but he says it to show that no one else really mattered at that time.

Speech says for 15 or 20 years it has been a bombardment or saturation of similar music. He cites artists such as Kendrick Lamar and J Cole, as helping usher in the sounds of the classic era again.

“The point is, the takeover that happened in the early 90s, it took all the way up to 2008 or 09 before there would be any type of balance again,” the emcee said. “Even now, I wouldn’t say there’s a balance, there’s two or three people that are having great success bringing conscious rap to the table.”

He continued, “I think hip-hop now is very segregated. The reason I believe people call it the Golden era is because there was so much diversity. You had a smorgasbord of great music and, individuality was celebrated. Today, it’s very segregated. You have some incredible indie hip-hop artists, and if you’re not the type of person who studies it and stays up on it, you won’t even know they exist. You’d have to be in the pocket to know they exist.”

This “balance” is still a bit off as “strip club and partying” music is still mainstream.

Speech says another problem that adds to hip-hop’s segregation is the lack of mixed tours and festivals. There are not tours where a slew of different artists is celebrated. “There are various circles, ‘your lyricists crews, your conscious crews, and your trap music circles, but they are not all mixed together’,” he said.

A look back to the early 90s and some of the festivals would have included Whoodini, LL Cool J, MC Hammer, Public Enemy, and 2 Live Crew all on the same stage. The radio was the same way, and they were all doing big numbers despite their different sounds. They were all promoted.

And speaking of the early 90s, Speech said his top three emcees are from that era. He believes the best are Chuck D, both members of De La Soul, and Nas.

With favorite emcees aside, Speech is certainly happy that music with a positive message is coming back. The effect has even trickled into the mainstream – albeit with controversy.

Perhaps the biggest stage of the year is the Super Bowl. At a time when many people are focused on the big game or the crazy commercials, Beyonce decided to make a statement for the Black Lives Matter Movement with her song “Formation.”

Speech feels Beyonce’s “Formation” video shed a lot of light on the culture. He doesn’t feel it was very surprising or radical. However, there were people that were very upset about it.

“That just sheds light in the huge divide of understanding what black people see this country as,” said Speech. “There are people dying, there are problems, it does need to be addressed, and the fact that many in our country don’t understand that it’s happening and are surprised someone is speaking out about it is a sad statement on this country.”

Most of the uproar was over what people felt was an “anti-police” message as far as the song is concerned. The other “problem” was people felt Beyonce was paying tribute to the Black Panthers.

“There is literally not one lyric or in that visual performance, that suggests in any way that she’s anti-police. There is literally no example of it, and I would like anybody to cite where that exists because I don’t see or hear anything that suggests anti-police,” he said.

What do you think about Speech’s statements? Agree or disagree?

Check back with Rapzilla next Thursday to hear more about how Speech thinks the church should handle Black Lives Matter. He also addresses his faith and the meaning of “Christian rapper.”

Justin Sarachik
Justin Sarachik
Justin is the Editor-in-Chief of Rapzilla.com. He has been a journalist for over a decade and has written or edited for Relevant, Christian Post, BREATHEcast, CCM, Broken Records Magazine, & more. He's written over 10,000 articles, done over 1,000 interviews, and is in post-production for documentaries on Danny "D-Boy" Rodriguez & Mario "Machete" Perez. He's the project manager of the upcoming video game Run the Court and of the media brand Crimefaces. Justin likes to work with indie artists to develop their brands & marketing strategies. Catch him interviewing artists on Survival of the Artist Podcast & creating videos on his social media channels.
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