In the jazz community Marsalis' opinions are generally regarded as elitist and regressive and often times he will go on TV, radio etc trying to speak as the voi

In the jazz community Marsalis' opinions are generally regarded as elitist and regressive and often times he will go on TV, radio etc trying to speak as the voice of a tradition that heavily disagrees with him. Many of his peers and people who have played in his bands have been active participants in the hip hop community for decades. If you look at what jazz as a method of social activism and a way to speak about the state of life in black america in the past century, thats really what hip hop is doing now. Hip hop talks about drug use/violence etc because its whats happening in the communities that the music comes out of. Jazz at its most important points in history was often fraught with musicians who were heavily addicted to drugs, abused woman, caught up in violence etc (just look up the issues some of the greats dealt with like Miles Davis, Charlie Parker, etc) Hip hop and jazz are fundamentally two extremely similar traditions of music born out of the same realities of the black american experience and for Wynton to being making comments like this is extremely disappointing