Why did hip hop culture succeed when it very easily could have just faded away?
Hip Hop’s success was inevitable. It was never going to fail. It was always destined to become mainstream. The reason I say this is because the fate of hip hop was already written in the hundred years of history that preceded it. In America, it has always been the way of things that society-at-large looks to smaller groups of people for its cultural cues, absorbing those cultural aspects and making them part of the greater American superculture. As far as the African-American community is concerned, American culture has always looked to us for its musical identity. From the very beginning, when our Spirituals were taken by mainstream culture and bastardized into Minstrel Musicals, it has always been this way; on through the commercialization of such musical forms as Ragtime, Gospel, Blues, Jazz, Doo Wop, R&B, Rock & Roll, Soul, Funk and Disco. Was there really ever any doubt that the same fate would befall the latest musical form to develop out of our community, Hip Hop? Even from hip-
