What’s good, Avocados? HP here at the beginning of a 30 day journey that will hopefully bring out a lot of the amazing positivity that went around this summer during our celebration of the 50th anniversary of hip hop, found here: https://the-avocado.org/2023/08/11/for-the-culture-hip-hop-at-50-a-celebration/

Why November? Well, in 2021 the US Congress declared this month National Hip Hop History Month. The bill, co-sponsored by Maxine Waters and Jamaal Bowman, was created to recognize and celebrate hip hop’s enduring influence on American culture. “Hip Hop is my life. Hip Hop saved my life. Hip Hop gave me knowledge of self. Hip Hop is who I am,” Congressman Bowman said in a statement in 2021. “The celebration of Hip Hop history and the study of it is essential to our democracy, our innovation, our voice, and who we are as human beings.”  Here, here, Congressman!

So here’s the plan, friends-I have 30 topics planned for the month. I’ll throw out an example, and then it’s on the community! In order to keep the thread from borking, please limit yourself to one YouTube/media link per day. If someone ‘beats you to it’ and posts a song you would’ve posted, reply under their post saying why you like this song/why it was your pick as well, etc. 

We all know that hip hop is more than just music, and if you’d like to drop some thoughts/knowledge, you’re welcome to do that as well if it’s in the same zip code as the day’s topic.

I ask that we keep this as positive as we can. Don’t yuck anyone’s yum, don’t snark on someone who may not be as familiar as others, don’t ‘Um, actually’ people, etc. Ain’t nobody earning any Internet Points out here. 

Day 1: ‘Introducing’: Tell us about a hip hop/rap artist you think is underrated. It can be an artist you love to tell people about, someone you think should have more views/fame, etc. 

I’ll start off! All of the people I thought of are women, because I’ve been frustrated over the years seeing so many talented rappers getting discounted or qualified somehow because of their gender. So my first thought was Little Simz, who is absolutely my favorite rapper right now. And I know that she has had a lot of success, and is well respected in the UK, but I thought ‘man, people should really be talking about how this woman EATS!’ Every album is better, every verse still hungry and ambitious, I tell everyone I can about her! But I’m going to go with Jean Grae, who in my mind is one of the all-time underrated rappers. Here she is dropping bars that seem effortless. Incredible stuff! (Thumbs down to Babygrande for putting their wack trademark stamp on this song)

Let us know who you got!