On #HipHopHistory, America’s Best Future, & Smithsonian NMAAHC

Hip-hop allows us all to live our best American lives

The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture Kickstarter project to bring a Smithsonian Anthology of Hip-Hop and Rap to life is important not just because it’d be dope. Rather, it’s in the word life, and moreover how precious hip-hop culture and rap music can make one’s life and one’s world, that this is a necessary venture.

It wasn’t until 2008 when Brooklyn born lyricist MC Lyte’s then 20-year old rap classic “Paper Thin” unequivocally became my favorite rap song of all time. I was 30 and blissfully jobless then. The life expectancy of the average black American male is 70, so yeah, it was definitely a mid-life crisis. I had just started my second career as a music journalist with a wing, prayer, and Blogspot account for a site that I called True Genius Requires Insanity. I didn’t necessarily believe I’d be successful as a music journalist, but it seemed like a fun distraction from feeling like I was a failure at life. This was, of…