Hip Hop was created in the 70s by people who were in their teens and twenties (Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaatta.)
At first nobody really knew what Hip Hop/Rap Music was. When I was a kid (6 or 7 years old) I thought Rap music was a sub genre of R&B. If you listen to;
Rappers Delight - Sugar Hill Gang
The Breaks - Kurtis Blow
Freedom - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5
Planet Rock - Afrika Bambaatta
The Message - Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5
You could see how somebody in elementary school might consider Rap music a sub genre of R&B and not it's own artform. The background music was played by real musicians and was composed like actual R&B. I had never heard of the live tapes (Cold Crush, Kool Moe Dee vs Busy Bee, etc.)
Those old school artists created Hip Hop and you can prove it with tapes and flyers.
As such, those old school artists have the authority to make rules and decide what is and isn't Hip Hop.
Conway doesn't have any equity in Hip Hop. He might be the hottest MC over the past 5 years, but Kool Moe Dee, Grandmaster Caz, and Melle Mel were the first people to be called "the hottest MC". They were considered the hottest MC before Conway was born.
I can understand Conway's frustration, and granted Flex has only been a radio DJ since the late 80s (maybe earlier) so Hip Hop goes back before Hot 97 and Funkmaster Flex, he's more of a second generation old schooler.
But my point is, Hip Hop is not an abstract concept with no structure or leader. Hip Hop isn't whatever you want it to be.
Hip Hop has a beginning and there are Pioneers that are still alive, still breathing, and still doing interviews to set the record straight.
All that is to say, The old timers own Hip Hop. They literally own the genre. They can go to court and prove beyond reasonable doubt that they created Hip Hop and have the tapes, flyers, music videos, 12" singles and albums to prove that Hip Hop is their intellectual property. Conway The Machine can't do that.
In other words, Just like Lord Jamar said, "White people are a guest in Hip Hop", likewise, people under 50 are a guest in Hip Hop.
Somebody 30 years old can't come in and kick their feet up and act like it's their home.
People from Flex's generation and older have authority.
And people from Conway's generation have no equity in Hip Hop to tell Flex to , "get out of the way"
Flex, and any old school MC or DJ, has the authority to tell Conway to find another genre because Hip Hop belongs to the people that created it who are now in their 50s and 60s. Those people (Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Bambaatta, Grandmaster Caz, Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel, Fearless 4, Crash Crew, Spoonie G) <---- those guys have 12"singles, music videos, live tapes and flyers to prove in a court of law that they invented Hip Hop and curated it in the early years before the major corporations took over.
Conway needs to understand that just because you are a hot MC right now, it doesn't give you an equal stake as somebody who has been doing it since the 80s (or 70s).
I think what Melle Mel, Kool Moe Dee and Grandmaster Caz have to say is more important than what Conway, Benny, and Westside have to say.
