Hip-Hop: Today’s Civil Rights Movement?
By: Scott Simon

The article is about an author named Todd Boyd who wrote a book called The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Region of Hip-Hop. The book compares Hip-Hop culture with Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.
In a Weekend Edition Saturday Interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, Todd Boyd states, “Martin Luther King Jr. and his politics are very specific to a certain time and it is important for us to learn from that, but if we want to talk about the present and future, Hip-Hop is more immediate and more relevant.” Black Power has moved away from the suffering and into Hip-Hop, which is more active, aggressive, and more revolutionary.
Boyd also states, “Hip-Hop uses languages as a weapon, not a weapon to violate or not to offend, but as a weapon that pushes the envelope that provokes people, makes people think”.
The acronym for his book, The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Region of Hip-hop is a reference to a phrase in the “1970’s-Head nigger in charge.” N-i-g-g-e-r has always been seen as a racist word and a root word for slavery. Hip-Hop then changed the word to N-i-g-g-a. Rapper Tupac Shakur said, “N-i-g-g-a stands for Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.”
I agree with the article that Martin Luther King Jr. and the “I have a Dream” speech helped African Americans get equal rights. We still thank Martin Luther King Jr. for desegregation and we will always keep him in our minds. The “I have a Dream” speech was a true life experience; without Martin Luther King Jr., equal rights for all might not exist today. We have learned from this experience and now people are seldom rejected for something solely based on race.
Today people more often express their feelings through Hip-Hop. Artists to express their true feelings about what is really happening in their lives use hip-Hop. Everything in Hip-Hop has meaning and it comes from the heart and soul of the person. It is based on true real life experiences. Hip-Hop is the culture and lifestyle of music and has become nationally and internally popular.
Hip-Hop comes with a beat or a dance that catches a person’s eye or ear and can be expressed in many forms such as graffiti art, emceeing, deejays, or break-dancing. It can be heard in cars, the clubs or just walking down the street; it is becoming more and more popular everyday.
The language of music has changed. The word N-I-g-g-e-r to me has been used as a word of racism and a root of slavery. I have heard people of the African American race say it to themselves and I haven’t ever figured out why as it seems to me they would be insulting themselves. Hip-Hop has changed the word to N-i-g-g-a, which rapper Tupac Shakur says “N-i-g-g-a stands for Never Ignorant Getting Goals Accomplished.” From that statement, it seems to me that people are unaware of getting goals accomplished. People set their minds to one thing and another minute it changes.
Overall, Todd Boyd’s book The New H.N.I.C: The Death of Civil Rights and the Region of Hip-Hop seems like a really good book I would enjoy reading. Todd Boyd makes a lot of sense in the comparison of Hip-Hop becoming more popular than the Civil Rights Movement. The Civil Rights Movement has come and gone and now the future is ahead with Hip-Hop. Hip-Hop has become the next revolutionary movement.

Work Cited
Simon, Scott. Hip Hop: Today’s Civil Rights Movement? NPR Program. March 2007.
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