Hip Hop, and perhaps rightfully so, spends a lot of time focused on “haters” and their presence in everyday life. According to nearly anybody that is associated with hip hop, these are the people that have motivated them to chase their goals and pushed them to excellence. Without the haters, they may not have succeeded.

What I want to do here with this blog is challenge hip hop to take another approach. Instead of constantly attempting to prove haters wrong, try to prove supporters right. Sure, every now and then we get a song or two that will shout-out moms and of course we have the “thank you” speeches when awards are won, but it’s evident that the focus of hip hop in many aspects evolves around the hater and not the people actually invested in the person’s success.

Maybe this is easy for me to say because I don’t have many perceived “haters”. Either they don’t exist, I’m naïve and/or ignorant to the fact that they’re around, or I simply end up disassociating myself with those people (consciously or subconsciously). Whatever the case, I much rather prefer to strive for greatness based upon the people that have sacrificed for me and have cheered for me since day one as opposed to wasting time dealing with people that give away nothing but negative energy. The smile of a supporter is a hundred times greater than the frown of a hater.

Don’t get me wrong; having something to prove can be a huge motivator. Naysayers have played a very important role in many great people’s lives, especially when it comes to competition. Anytime somebody decided to go against Michael Jordan, he would take it one step further just to prove he was basketball’s elite. Same can be said for countless athletes, artists, entertainers – even community activists and politicians. Being denied something has a weird way of bringing out the best in us at times. However, we can’t lose sight of the fact that our ability to take on hate and negative energy is heavily based upon the love and encouragement of those behind us in our corner.

If we gave just a little less time focusing on what negative people have to say, perhaps we could shed many of the other negative aspects of our culture, as well. When we focus on haters, even if we do overcome all their hopes of failure and misery, we still tend to carry around a lot of hostility, which only bring stress and pain upon ourselves. Let’s make sure that we use only the minimum amount of negative energy needed to get us going and the remainder of the desire should come from the people that love us and actually want to see us win. If we can do that, then we will know and they will know that all of the support, praise, and sacrifice were not in vain.

What do you tend to use as motivation? Who were the people that kept you motivated? What role do haters play in hip hop? Do they play too much of a role? Leave all your thoughts and comments below! You can send any e-mails to straightouttahiphop@gmail.com.

Peace.