From the intro to 'The Darkest Hearts'
New D Hunter novel being published August 4 by Akashic Books
“Like many good earth spanning tales, hip hop started with truth, evolved into myth and degenerated into a money making enterprise. Along the way its roots were viewed as a discovery, an origin story, an off told tale and then just that blah, blah, blah thing you’ve heard so many times you barely listen. The myth (as it tends to) outlived the truth, the details grew fuzzy (even to those who lived it) and eventually it all gave way to cliche.
“But the enterprise of hip hop lives on like Frankenstein’s monster, constantly updated, remixed, repackaged, rebranded and rebooted until all that was left is a series of craftily commodified gestures of rebellion very far from its origins. Such is the way of culture in the United States, a rapacious and glutinous land, where progress was a ingratiating market driven code word and technology an heedless gateway to obsolesce. There are no real gate keepers in America, only salesmen for whom this year’s model was next year’s landfill.
“So citizens of this Republic of all colors and creeds, being Americans, took this particular cultural expression and squeezed it until it bled green and all manner of sex, love, fetish, stereotype, spirituality, dance and rhythm could be poured into a glass of commerce like juice from a lemon. Let’s bring that bitter taste to our lips and taste what its become.”