Gentrification and whitewashing of hip hop where cornrow stations and the word nigga being thrown around by non-black people was the persona of the biggest hip hop festival in Europe, this year at OpenAir Frauenfeld proved to be no different from the rest.
With its heavy line up consisting of Usher, Travis Scott, Gucci Mane and The Weeknd was sure to attract different European nationalities all centered to gather over one love for hip hop, its essence in culture and fulfillment of soul and history embedded in African-American linguistics and story-telling.
The European scene of Hip Hop is very gentrified with storytelling from rappers like Fler speaking of being for the gang in one of his songs as well as different references to drive-bys and hanging with crew it was interesting to have witnessed the white man's complexity and approach to his interpretation of the genre and culture of hip hop.
Appreciation has a very fine line towards appropriation where one has to realize that white youth's influence of jumping around, not flexing but really jumping, to trap music made me wonder and think of how the white man stole rock 'n roll music from the likes of Little Richard and Jimmy Hendrix turned it into something that no longer reflected its foundation in blues and country influences then slowly began to abandon it and found hip hop.
This is what comes to mind when you're a black woman, entering spaces for black people and are outnumbered yes, F.U.B.U by Solange comes to mind just to remind us:
All my niggas in the whole wide world Made this song to make it all y'all's turn For us, this shit is for us All my niggas let the whole world know Play this song and sing it on your terms For us, this shit is for us Don't try to come for us