As anyone who has been reading this blog or even remotely knows me, I am a connoisseur of music in general and especially first and foremost in my heart a hip-hopatarian. One of those hardcore die-hard hip-hop fans that was born into the hip hop era, and through out my upbringing hip hop has been one of many things that contributed to shaping the very fabric of my being. So consequently I have a lot feelings about hip hop from past to present, feelings about where it is today as an art form and what looms for hip hops future. I thought I would be able to write one great blog that would sum it all up but I as I set out to write this blog I realized that to truly write on the complex multi-dimensional medium that is hip hop it would take a series of blogs to truly get everything out that I had to say. And so we begin...
Rap music is sad at this point I must say! Nas may have proclaimed emphatically that “Hip Hop is Dead” most recently in 2006 but Common was already mourning Hip Hop's demise in 1994 with "I USED TO LOVE H.E.R"
“But once the man got you well he altered the native
Told her if she got an energetic gimmick
That she could make money, and she did it like a dummy
Now I see her in commercials, shes universal
She used to only swing it with the inner-city circle
Now she be in the burbs lickin rock and dressin hip
And on some dumb shit, when she comes to the city”
“Stressin how hardcore and real she is
She was really the realest, before she got into showbiz
I did her, not just to say that I did it
But Im committed, but so many niggaz hit it
That shes just not the same, lettin all these groupies do her”
From “selling out” to the “oversaturation of the industry” where everyone who can rhyme a few words feels like they're qualified to become a rapper. All of these things have contributed to propelling hip hop to where it is today, a sad shell of its former self. Oh how the rap game has fallen far from grace....
Jay also had something to say about the state of hip-hop as he explained perfectly in 2003’s Miss You(Remix)
"Big we missing you, Pac we missing you
We feel your presence just not in the physical
All across the world, blocks is miserable
Y'all left a void it's a lot of little you’s
But they not original and they not identical
They just studied your flows and they watched your interviews
That's when hip hop if it's not ten of you
Then it gotta be more, y'all left your paws
Footprints on the game, hood ain't been the same
Feeling ain't been in music, hooks ain't been the same
Pac they use your name in vein
But I guess that's the issue
And it proves how much, niggas really miss you"
I am beginning to wonder, if there some correlation between the demise of hip hop and sudden rise in the amount of black people wearing skinny jeans and dressing like Emo’s. Is yesterday’s throwback jersey wearing, fake chain sporting hip hop fan tomorrow’s skinny jean wearing, tight shirt sporting Emo????
I can say that I started to see this trend emerge about a year or so ago. I go to Up Against The Wall a hip hop clothing store out in Los Angeles pretty frequently and I started to notice that the clothing selection started to look more and more like something you would see in Hot Topic or like something from the wardrobe selections of a member of Fall Out Boy or My Chemical Romance.
But Hey, It could just be a coincidence that we got black people dressing like Emo’s and white kids in Milwaukee on myspace wearing dew rags and staking caps referring to themselves as “gansta ass niggas”…
But I have to say that the demise of rap is unquestionably in the hands of the artists themselves, rap music is so sad at this point that there is only a few rappers that are even kinda sorta making rap still remotely interesting…..
50 cent’s last album was exactly what he said it was on Hot 97 Radio earlier this week “A Dud” and with him busy counting his Vitamin Water money, I suspect that the “Get Rich Or Die Trying” 50 Cent is long gone.
Ludacris hasn’t been out in over a year and his last album which dropped in 2006, didn’t really make the usual Luda impact. It was nice but not the usual spectacular effort we’d come to expect from him.
Lil Wayne is dope and very creative, his mixtape songs and guest appearances are great but his last few singles have been lackluster. And the self proclaimed Best Rapper Alive hasn’t really put out a “great” album in since The Carter (2004)
Jay-Z is making this list merely due to the lack of available candidates, his last two albums really exposed to me that he isn’t the rapper that he once was, but still a better listen than Souljah Boy, Yung Joc, Rick Ross or Flo Rida. I don’t wanna bash Jay-Z because that’s my boy, I’m a huge fan but the material speaks for itself, his hearts just not in it the way it used to be.
Outkast is certainly keeping it interesting despite the fact that they haven’t dropped a full length album in I don’t know how long.
Kanye West has just dropped arguably the best rap album of the year and is constantly hitting us with classic records, he’s by far the “hottest” rapper out based on quality of full-length albums, hit songs and records sales (and really the only one in second hasn’t released a great full length album since 2004, Weezy). Kanye West himself is a great story considering how many labels played his rap skills to the left.
Common dropped “Finding Forever” last year which was great album though songs like “Party Like A Rock Star” by the gone never to be seen again boyz and “Pop Lock and Drop it” got twice as much radio and video airplay.
Lupe Fiasco just dropped his 2nd album with little promotion as usual, looks like his label is destined to let his sophomore album share the same fate as his debut album…400K and out.
Talib Kweli dropped one of his best albums in years last year but his label didn’t do much to help. I heard 1 or 2 singles, saw one video and that was it. Booooo Warner Bro’s for not giving Talib a chance to make it interesting by giving his music the necessary exposure to have the opportunity to breathe some life into a dying (better yet) Dead Rap Game.
And lastly we got Joe Budden, his Mood Muzik 3 mixtape is classic but his album got pushed back several times, now he’s not even on Def Jam anymore. So who knows when’s the next time we will see a full length Joey album.
Shit even Might Mos Def is singing now, WTF
And out of all these artists most of the so-called “Hit” records from last year were dominated not by Hip Hops heavy hitters, but by half-talent over produced no-rapping ass one hit wonders that struggles to move over 500,000 units even with 5000+ spins a week reaching an audience of 41 million listeners.
Examples: Shop Boyz, Souljah Boy, Mims, Lil Boosie, Hurricane Chris, Jim Jones, Huey, Rich Boy, DJ Unk & Plies....All sub-par and all secured Billboard Number #1 Hits and a place among the Top 15 most played songs of 2007.
In case your wondering, TI and Kanye West just missed the Top 15 Most Played but they were in the Top 25.
I think the failure of rap is a collective failure for everyone involved. The A&Rs for bringing these disgraceful artists to the labels, the Labels for signing and OKing the budgets to produce this nonsense, the Executive Producers and Label Heads for saying the music they are producing is satisfactory and putting it out. And lastly the rappers themselves for creating this transparent bullshit music. They don’t even deserve the title of an artist, there ain’t nothing artistic about saying “Its so hot in the club, I ain’t even got no shoes on” C’mon now, you have to have been able to think of something better to say than that. Rap is fucking wack, it’s a sad day. As a Hip-Hopatarian I am deeply saddened by the state of Rap music.
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