Say you were stuck in a maze and the only way out was house flipping, what would you do? If house flipping would potentially make housing unaffordable and create homelessness would you still do it? There are all sorts of mazes (traps) in any field or pursuit, there may be one way out or a few. You can choose to ignore it as the maze isn’t really a maze. Yet it still is a maze if you are looking for a way out. Looking for a way can be aspirational, motivational or competitive. Why is it that we create these structures and yearn to find a way out? Who makes the structures? What are these structures?

They say you create your own reality, your life is the way it is because of who you are. If you are who you are why is it that the world around you is like a maze with only a way out devised by you and many others? For example, if you felt intimidated by an elite group that controlled a certain part of a field (a part of that scene) would you blame the elite for your choice not to engage with them? Would you forfeit your own success to avoid a group you need but don’t actually like and want to associate with? Maybe at one point you did engage with this group and you saw the maze appear and in the distance was an exit most likely into a whole new maze.

You became depressed in this scene and disengaged, and then you fall into another maze outside of that one, it may be larger but you don’t know the way out. All you know is the maze, you still can’t find the satisfaction you need, i.e the way out. There seems to be no way out and then you find yourself blaming this group of elite people and that group of elite people. Everything starts to be tainted with injustice and dissatisfaction. I think that is why people find themselves doing graffiti, selling drugs, doing crime, being anti-social and feeling lost in a world of people making the world what is by being who they are. We all make the world what it is, our own lives what they are and we create these structures because we are not satisfied.

There are people who don’t even try and find a way out of the maze, they work on themselves, they make their own world. That is what KRS ONE talks about with the advent of Hip Hop culture, there was no way out for a lot of people, those people created their own culture and found a way out. They had to find a way out because they were oppressed, they were shut out, otherwise, only a select few could find their way out through exceptional acts. With Hip Hop every one had a chance, there was a way out for everyone. I think the wave of Hip Hop culture gave a lot of people hope, even those who were not oppressed but dissatisfied with the status quo. A lot of people could create their own worlds out of nothing, that is what Zapgalaxy has done inspired by Hip Hop culture and its drive for self-creation.

There is nothing wrong with copying or mimicking but Hip Hop is also a creative force and both copying or mimicking can’t be compared to originality and the drive for self-creation.