critical review #2: Rivera 2003 Hip Hop

Rivera's chapter entitled "Whose Hip Hop" discusses the beginning of the Hip Hop era and how it got the stigma that still lingers on today. This stigma is about how African Americans, along with everyone else, labeling hip hop and rap as "their" music. At this point in history during the 1980s Black Power was a strong ideal and so many groups like Run DMC and Public Enemy were coming to be popular. Their reasons for becoming popular were the fact that they were true African Americans rhyming about their political point of view along with just voicing their opinions about their lives.
Soon Latino Americans were creating Hip Hop Music, but were struggling to succeed in the media. Latinos could not get signed with recording labels because everyone thought that they were not "black" enough to sell good music let alone produce good music. This was frustrating to many Latinos because they had worked so hard and believed Hip Hop to be a musical style that they were very capable of producing a good song for, however most people at the time felt otherwise. At times Latinos were even criticized for their dancing not being suitable for the Hip Hop scene when at one point in time they were known for being "center Stage" when discussing dancing (essentially meaning they were some of the best dancers around). As more Latino artists came to be, people especially African American Hip Hop Artists and followers showed more interest in their versions of songs and such because they were finally coming around and not viewing their music as mainstream and more deep so to speak (discussion political views and so on). Rather just a different style of music showing more "passion and sex" and less "soul" like the original Hip Hop views were about.

Discussion Question: Why do you think that the Hip Hop scene, despite the fact of coming from such a strong historical background, produced this large stigma for the producers and composers of this type of music that still stands today?