This year marked the 20th anniversary of the College Media Journal's first New Music Marathon, an annual weekend during which bands, fans, and music-industry types converge on New York City for music and networking. But the sense of celebration was barely apparent from Oct. 18-22, as more than 500 acts, mostly ranging from the familiar to the forgettable, ran the club gauntlet. CMJ's relevance has been in question for a while now, and the rise of the dot-coms has robbed the festivities of much of their focus: Most panels now seem dominated by Internet-related subjects, and CMJ itself appears willing to reposition itself as part of a larger global network of bits and bytes as well as bands.
CMJ's dedication to new music, and the implication that the Music Marathon might yield some surprises, has always served as its selling point, but this year the best bets were often the most popular, and consequently the most difficult tickets to wrangle. Even with the most talked-about draws—and the occasional compelling discovery like Canada's King Cobb Steelie—CMJ found itself short on new music that means something in the here and now. A lot has changed in the past two decades, and aside from a few concessions to electronic music and hip-hop, CMJ has stuck with countless indie-rock bands and the usual punk retreads, a decision that has slowed its progress. The gathering entices attendees with the promise of exciting new music, but too often falls back on the twin party-poopers of hype and hassle.
The festival should have celebrated its 20-year milestone with more than rote redundancy, and another curiously overlooked anniversary celebration, that of hip-hop, made CMJ's inadequacies all the more apparent. There's no clear ground zero for the genre, which some trace back to the late '60s, or even as far back as the beginning of scat singing. But The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" proved the first real rap hit in late 1979, just as disco emitted its last gasps. Like rock 'n' roll, hip-hop was once dismissed as a novelty but continues to evolve into new permutations.
While CMJ limited its tentative commitment to hip-hop to a handful of shows, only a relatively short subway ride stood between Marathon attendees and a full-fledged celebration of modern music. An exhibit titled "Hip-Hop: Roots, Rhymes, And Rage" at the Brooklyn Museum Of Art—a bit out of the way for the average college-radio-affiliated conventioneer, but well worth the trip—attempted to encapsulate a genre that remains new and fresh. The outer boroughs of Brooklyn and the Bronx gave birth to hip-hop, and seeing so many artifacts of pop-culture history so close to their source was truly inspiring.
As arranged by music scribe, guest curator, and former Real World cast member Kevin Powell, "Hip-Hop: Roots, Rhymes, And Rage" falls far short of its title's ambitious goal, and the occasional interjection of politics only further accentuates the exhibit's flaws. For example, a tiny plaque mentioning rap's redoubtable sexism, displayed next to a picture of Lil' Kim, is an insultingly fleeting attempt to put hip-hop misogyny and the counterattack by female MCs in perspective. The portions of the exhibit acknowledging the rise of gangsta rap hardly amount to a balanced portrayal of what some have called the death of hip-hop, no matter how many tributes to The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur adorn the wall. Likewise, the exhibit overlooks the prominent role the Nation Of Islam and the 5% Nation have played, for better or worse. Also a bit disheartening, if not outright shocking: The requisite gift shop carries mugs, T-shirts, and those stupid scooters, but no rap albums.
Despite all the deficiencies and gaps, "Hip-Hop: Roots, Rhymes, And Rage" ultimately succeeds, if only because it quenches a thirst for some sort of official record of the contributions and changes hip-hop has brought to the world. The exhibit has broad appeal, which might explain the presence of older patrons alongside school kids who looked like they had never set foot in a museum. Even Beastie Boy Adam Yauch sneaked in to check out the memorabilia (which includes several pictures of his group as a bunch of obnoxious young hooligans), while a pair of teens, oblivious to the living legend standing next to them, debated the authenticity of one of Shakur's diamond-encrusted rings.
Items on display range from the cool to the fascinating, situating homemade posters boasting spectacular bills from the early '80s next to booths containing some of Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation costumes, Rakim's leather "Follow The Leader" jacket, Missy Elliott's "Supa Dupa Fly" outfit, and an enormous suit worn by one of The Fat Boys. Personal items such as Run-D.M.C.'s sneakers, hats, and glasses or Flavor Flav's clocks pack their own iconic status, while mixers from Grandmaster Flash and Prince Paul reveal the surprisingly simple source of so much classic music. Amid graffiti-art-filled halls and screens showing clips from Wild Style and Yo! MTV Raps, rough-sketched drafts of Public Enemy stage designs are housed next to classic album art and handwritten lyrics.
A corner dedicated to hip-hop's legal trials (both literal and figurative) is even more compelling. Inches-thick transcripts of Florida's 2 Live Crew censorship ordeal are open for the public to peruse, while Ice-T's efforts to extract himself from his Warner Bros. contract prove both amusing and sad. The audacious and ill-advised 1989 letter from the FBI to N.W.A is there for all to see, an ironic corollary to Ronald Reagan's 50th Presidential Inaugural Ball program from 1985, which promises break-dancing by the New York City Breakers.
These hundreds of items, on display until the end of the year, represent only the tip of the iceberg, but it's an iceberg CMJ hardly acknowledges. This has been another banner year for hip-hop, with great albums released by Ghostface Killah, Jurassic 5, Talib Kweli, Common, Blackalicious, De La Soul, Dilated Peoples, Anti-Pop Consortium, Eminem, OutKast, and many more. Yet CMJ seems so mired in the past, or at least uninterested in the present, that it's no wonder the Music Marathon appeared to have no bearing on the future. Dot-com or no, if it lacks a feel for what's going on, it doesn't mean a thing. Sadly, CMJ appears to have been left behind by a youth culture it no longer understands and may lack the passion to love.