December 6, 2020 – Hip hop, aka rap – one might think that’s the only music that’s out there now. Pop song radio is full of it, whether on its own or as interludes in a normal pop song. Country songs have it now. The awards shows feature it almost exclusively. It once was a force of newness, of rebellion, but now, it’s just so ordinary. Oh and without meaning to stereotype, it’s what one expects out of the young, and out of certain ethnicities. Or is it?

How about this young man? I know nothing of him, except that his song gets played on KLOS in my drive times all the time. I love this song. I had no idea this young man was the race he is, and I have to say, good for him! Oh and not that there aren’t amazing black rockers; indeed, the father of all electric guitar was like the best there ever was (or if you’re an Eddie Van Halen fan the second best), and of course, the entire genre is based on the old blues players. And either way, whether Hendrix is first, or second, he was first to really rock out the guitar. Still, his brethren, at least in the past thirty years, really went mostly the hip hop route. Not this young man. He’s all in on the Hendrix mode. Personally, I’m liking this diversity, and I say bring it on. It makes me wonder about his friends though. What do they play? What do they think? Does he care? Probably not. And I know I don’t; I really like this song, and I turn it up every time it plays on the radio.

Following that same line of thinking, the former hip hop artist Machine Gun Kelly has ditched hip hop for rock, seemingly permanently. He guested on the Motley Crue song — the title song for movie The Dirt, adding hip hop elements to that song. Perhaps he was so swayed by the rock genre that he just said, heck, I don’t care; I’m ditching this hip hop and going to play rock, no matter what my friends say. Looks like it.

Whatever the case, and whatever these young’un’s influences are, they are welcome. And anyone is welcome to change. Couldn’t you just imagine the award shows then? What if… What if, let’s say, the Grammy’s invited the top rapper, I mean hip hop artist, on the show to perform, and instead of playing whatever is the hit at the time, the hip hopper launched into a total rock jam? Now that would be something! And you never know.