Harvest Blaque Earshot Blog 2: "Relax Ya Mind and Let Your Conscience Be Free"

Since its inception, Hip-Hop has been counted out and dismissed as a fad, labeled “not real music.” And yet, here we are.

Hip-Hop now employs people who don’t even like the culture. It has always existed as its own planet, orbiting outside approval, creating its own gravity.

Those of us who grew up inside it became the champions who filled the voids of our ghetto teachers for anyone willing to listen.

I grew up with Hip-Hop. I watched it evolve. I even consider these later years part of that evolution. But truth be told, they haven’t been my favorite.

There’s been an uptick in violence rooted in false bravado, unchecked misogyny, and the glamorization of addiction.

Yes, those elements have always existed in the narrative but lately, they feel disconnected from growth. Less reflection. More noise. At times, it felt like buffoonery.

I’m a believer in testimony. Vulnerability is our superpower. As a writer, I constantly ask myself: Who am I? Why am I? And why do I want to be heard right now?

As a youngin, I found my way through artists who looked around their circumstances and translated them into substance.

Nas made me feel like I was walking through Queensbridge, he ignited my imagination and expanded my world. I remember hearing Ghostface Killah’s “All That I Got Is You” and feeling the ache of struggle transform into triumph or Little Brother and their challenges with growing pains and manhood. That was Hip-Hop doing what it does best.

We seek truth through the lens of art, add healing and a hard-ass beat. That balance feels rare these days. Don’t get me wrong, I love a dope party track. But I’m in a season where I need iron to sharpen iron pure, not diluted.

People say Hip-Hop is in decline, and I don’t think that judgment is rooted in the table Hip-Hop built. Yes, commercially, the numbers tell a story. Hip-Hop’s U.S. market share dropped from nearly 30% in 2020 to about 24% in 2025. For the first time since 1990, no rap songs appeared in the Billboard Hot 100 Top 40 in late October 2025. Shifting listener tastes, the rise of country and global genres, and new chart rules all play a role.

But numbers don’t define culture, conscience does.

What concerns me most isn't the chart position; it’s representation. Too many negative agendas masquerade as authenticity, projecting a version of Hip-Hop that never fully aligned with what we could be.

Hip-Hop was never meant to just entertain, it was meant to inform, to heal, to testify, to imagine freedom out loud.

Maybe this moment isn’t a decline. Maybe it’s a reckoning.

An invitation to relax our minds, reconnect with our conscience, and remember why this culture mattered in the first place. I hope that you take some time away from the mindlessness and ask yourself what you overcame and where you are going?  If we’re brave enough to tell the truth again, Hip-Hop will listen.

-Bryan "Harvest Blaque" Hancock

See Ghostface Killah feat Mary J. Blige "All That I got Is You"