I saw hip hop sprawled out in an alley in Atlanta
back in January 2006. she wasn’t dead yet, but she was in critical
condition, a woman worn-out by time and treason: her eyes were
swollen shut, she could not move her hands to form a fist anymore
and her voice was nearly gone. all this came after years and years
of abuse and neglect and malpractice. those who have been treating
her wounds in the past 10 years have misdiagnosed her disease.
perhaps they were unaware. or maybe she was too far gone for them
to care. i first found her in 1994 listening to Resurrection by
Common. when she started getting sick in the late 1990s, i decided
to look after her, to monitor her movement and maybe, with the
right medicine, stabilize her condition. i realized it was not
working that dark night when i saw her strung out and stripped
bare. hip hop died January 14, 2006 when Laffy Taffy by D4L became
Billboard’s number one single. she was 33. we should have listened
long ago to her cries for us to pull the plug. but i believe she
will return. every day i look after her, searching for signs that
she might awaken. this is my documentation, my journal entries of
life after hip hop.
