Hip Hop Is Dead!
There is a dangerous trend going on in music. Along with the increased consolidation of major labels there has been a frightening movement with regards to the elimination of brick and mortar music retailers. The most famous and recent case is the national liquidation of Tower Record stores. Although a major retail chain, Tower Records was noted as being a refuge for many independent artists and labels. With the eradication of Tower records many independents found themselves homeless and thus retreated back to the local family owned “Ma and Pa†retailers and of course the internet. For me, the local family owned retailers have always been my first choice when it is time to purchase music. Ironically, the selection in smaller retailers is always more varied than larger retailers and as anyone that has shopped at a small retailer knows, the service is a lot better. So you can imagine how distraught I was to learn that my favorite music retailer Music Emporium was closing down.
Many times I had ventured into Music Emporium not knowing what I was looking for only to come out with great albums like Hezekiah’s “Hurry Up And Waitâ€, Pumpkinhead’s “Orange Moon Over Brooklyn†and The Strange Fruit Project’s “The Healing.â€Â Being able to talk to my man CHAOS, who holds down the store, and get recommendations on good new music, regardless of record sales or popularity, has been invaluable. As a music lover it is so great to come to a place that is not marred by recommendations of 50 cent, Ying Yang Twins or other flavors of the month, but is truly interested in music for music’s sake. With the closing of Music Emporium, I feel a little more lost in this world of increasing commercialism and cultural ambiguity.
So I guess this is my last stitched effort in rallying the troops who have been hurt by the closing of their favorite stores, like Arons Record Store, who closed its doors after serving Los Angeles for 40 years. As the content providers are closing its doors on independents, if we lose the distribution channels, our record stores, all is most certainly lost. Please support your local independent music retailers and if you are in Brooklyn, please check out Music Emporium. Hip hop is dying, but at least we can fight to keep it alive a little longer.
Music Emporium is located at 286 Flatbush Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11217
(718) 638-0550.  Â
God Bless, JavonÂ
December 6th, 2006 at 7:48 am
I gotta roll with J. on this one. I have been rolling through ME since I moved to Brooklyn in 2003 and have always appreciated the service, and feeling as I was doing the neighborhood a service by patronizing the store. It’s a trip when you think about it, the very things that distressed African-American communities get criticized for not having, are the very institutions that get cleared away by nebulous marketing trends and exorbitant rent hikes. The easiest thing to say is that we need to own our institutions, but owning property is only one facet of the equation. Owning the land a store is built on does not mean that you have control over fickle consumer tastes (mine included) and an economy that is regressing to late 19th century standards of privileging monopolies.
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