The Parts of Hip Hop That Need to Change
As I write this, there are 29,887 songs in my iTunes library. Of those songs, 14,838 of them are of the hip hop genre. I’ve sunken more money into acquiring rap albums then I’ll ever care to admit, I’ve written other articles about it on this very blog, I’ve figured out ways of writing lengthy papers about it for various college literature courses, I’ve attempted to alienate many of my friends for what I deem to be their inferior tastes, I spent multiple days filling out my Kendrick bracket because I felt that I needed to listen to each song again and thoroughly consider each one, I pre-order albums and merch directly from indie labels or the artists themselves purely for their financial benefit. The list goes on. So yes, I am a hip hop fan. I have been for a long time, and there are certain aspects of this genre I love so much that have started to bore or outright annoy me.
Here's what 29, 887 songs in your iTunes looks like, by the way.
True, some of what I’m going to talk about literally only bothers me, and equally as true, I can be a bit of a snob. But I’ve gotten better. There was a time when every song I considered subpar on the radio used to send me into rage convulsions and nerdy tirades. Now I’ve learned the art of indifference. I have the ability to listen to whatever’s on the charts, take what I can get from it, and walk away without trying to beat you to death with a Madvillainy LP. It’s not quite objectivity, but I can be fair when I have to be.
And before I get into the meat of things, I’m already worried about the tone of this article. If you have a strong stomach and you hate yourself very very deeply, take a quick look at hip hop Twitter and you’ll understand why. Offer an opinion of a certain artist or question the quality of certain albums and it won’t take long for some rapper’s fans to call you a hater or some high school kid who just discovered conscious rap to call you a sheep. (I was definitely that kid in high school.) All types of unpleasantness could befall you.
But I refuse to be part of the problem. I’m not some grumpy “real hip hop” dude, my goal isn’t to make you feel stupid for liking whatever you like, and none of this should be read as me trying to shove my dogma down your throat. (In fact, you've probably heard most of these points before.) In my attempts to amuse myself, I’m almost assuredly going to speak ill of a rapper you like and there will be times I’ll come off as brash or childish or curmudgeonly. But I myself am guilty of a few of things I’m going to talk about, and I’m in no position to dictate how you should think or feel about anything. Please, for the love of god, disagree with me.
It’s healthy and necessary to question the art we love because that which doesn’t evolve eventually gets stale and dies. Too much of the conversation around hip hop revolves around taking unflinchingly rigid stances on seemingly every aspect of the culture. I know this to be the case because too often, I find myself falling into the same childish ways of thinking, and I can see the same behaviors reflected in my feeds and many a thinkpiece or video essay. So let’s take a good look at ourselves. Like adults.
Let’s stop placing so much value in beef.
(Note 5/29/2018: I wrote all this before Drake went after Pusha. Parts of it are dated now, but hopefully my point's still clear.)
When was the last time a hip hop feud really took hold of the mainstream consciousness? There's been a few online spats between the various SoundCloud rappers and a threat here and there, but for my money, I’d probably go Meek Mill vs. Drake.
One positive takeaway from the Meek vs. Drake beef is that it got people talking about ghostwriting, the importance of rappers writing their own lyrics, and whether or not it matters more in a genre where a large portion of its meaning comes from how an artist puts their words and rhymes together.
But as far as I’m concerned, that was literally it. To me, the tracks both Meek and Drake released felt churned out and lazy, the disses themselves made my eyes roll to the back of my head, and while the stakes were as low as low can be, everyone and their mother and their mother’s corporate Twitter account treated the beef as if Drake wiped Meek off the face of the planet when most of the weight was carried by Drake’s fans making memes and being loud in their usual internet holes. Everyone lost their minds, and all that really happened was that one (in my opinion) mediocre rapper took on (in my opinion) another mediocre rapper. If one of those mediocre rappers took on a non-mediocre rapper, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
Also, if you’ll allow me this paragraph to be petty, watching Twitter from the sidelines as everyone was going nuts over the “Twitter fingers” line was one of the most genuinely disappointing moments I’ve had with hip hop in the last few years. You know… the line where Drake disses himself and is essentially mad at Meek for not threatening him with violence (“Trigger fingers turn to Twitter fingers”).
At first, I got lost in it. I was reading as many tweets and takes as I could get my hands on. But then I asked myself some important questions: Why? Why am I doing this? Why am I reading all these pieces when I could be doing something more productive with my time, like cooking a meal or checking my testicles for cancer? These are two artists I have zero emotional investment in. Why should I care who prevails?
Lingering over all of this is, of course, the notion of whether or not the quality of the songs even matter anymore. If there’s one thing this internet age has taught us, it’s that it doesn’t matter who has the better lyrics or the better point or the most integrity. It’s about who can be the loudest and who can social media the most. (That was me turning “social media” into a verb. When you own your own domain, you're allowed to make up words.)
However, that then led me to a second question: Was beef ever interesting? Sure, the disses used to be harder and the discussions around them had less to do with internet clownery and more to do with who had the better bars. But I think that even the most lauded diss tracks in history have a certain vapidity to them and most fail as actual songs you’re supposed to enjoy outside the context of the beef.
“Hit ‘Em Up?”
Neither Hussein, Kadafi, or E.D.I. Mean’s bars have anywhere near the veracity of Pac’s verses, and even then, he doesn’t offer much in the way of substantive takedowns as much as base level insults, posturing, and threats. If we must have diss tracks, then I want something more than just "I'll kill you" or whatever. Anybody can do that. Also, the part about Prodigy’s sickle-cell has aged remarkably poorly in the wake of Prodigy’s death. (I don't know if that's fair or not, but it’s hard to hear it now and react well to it.)
“Ether?”
While "Takeover" is damn near an essay in its thoroughness, most of Nas's verses on "Ether" devolve into playground homophobia and pettiness. (To be fair, "Takeover" is guilty of the same thing, but it at least has something else to offer.) Also, and I know this isn't necessarily a new opinion, but the "Ether" beat is garbage.
“Second Round K.O.?"
I myself am guilty of being petty here, but why the fuck am I spending so much time listening to Mike Tyson? It’s a four and a half minute song, and about half of it is listening to Tyson or the fake referee. That’s real estate you could use for more bars, but instead, I’m listening to phone messages because… I don’t know.
And even when it comes to the diss tracks that actually hold their weight, your “Takeovers” and your “South Bronxes” and your “Exodus 23:1s” and what have you, the only thing I can think about when I listen to them now is how much time and effort went into doing so little. Think about this: Maybe you came from harsh circumstances, like the Marcy Projects where Jay-Z grew up or the streets of Virginia where a young Pusha T called home. Maybe you didn’t. Either way, you worked incredibly hard, you made sacrifices in your personal life, and pursued your dreams knowing that you may die penniless and unknown. But all that work paid off and you succeeded, and hey, maybe you used your advance from the label wisely and your second or third album might see the light of day.
All that money, all that work, and all that strife has gotten you here, and now you’re making a song about a rapper you’re kind of mad at.
Of course, these beefs contributed to the evolution of the culture and for better or for worse, we wouldn’t be here without them. However, if I had to choose between Pusha T, who I genuinely think is one of the greatest rappers alive, writing more diss songs or doing what he does best and writing more of those sweet sweet coke raps, I will choose the latter each and every time. I could make a similar comment about pretty much every artist who’s ever put out a famous diss record.
If we lived in a time where lyrics in a beef still mattered and your fans couldn’t win your feud for you, maybe I wouldn't feel the need to make this point. But we don’t. Internet killed the rap beef star. Let’s accept that reality and stick to making actual music. And besides, we live in a time where you know that for every rap beef that breaks out, there’s some alt-right troll sitting atop a throne of jerk-off tissues who's rubbing his palms together and grinning at the drama. It’s not a good look anymore. Maybe it never was.
Let’s stop pushing the notion that hip hop needs to be competitive.
I’ve had a hard time describing this particular point. At first, this section was called “Let’s stop using the competitive nature of hip hop as an excuse to justify being an asshole” or something like that. But that didn’t get to the heart of the issue. So I rewrote and rewrote, and this then became a section about rappers who only write battle raps and how none of you are ever going to write punchlines better than Sean Price. But that wasn’t quite it either, because I do still love me a good battle rap every now and then. (Though I maintain the part about Sean Price.)
So bear with me for a second. Let’s talk about Kendrick’s “Control” verse.
I know, I know, I’m just as sick of talking about the now five year old song as you are. Still, something about that verse bothered me. It wasn’t whether or not the verse was meant as a diss, as some people still think it is. It also wasn’t the debate over which rappers should’ve been included in the verse or which rappers didn’t deserve the mention.
What bothered me was this: Why does hip hop have to be set up in such a way that rappers can’t just go about their business? Why can’t you just make good music and be content without ever having to worry about what other rappers are doing? Why does there have to be a throne?
And, look, I get it. Drama is entertaining, debates over who had the best verse and who’s the better rapper are fun to have, and I know that I sound like a grumpy high school principal. I’m also well aware of the fact that the competitive side of hip hop played a vital role in hip hop’s upbringing, particularly when it was more regionally rooted and you took pride in your neighborhood because the guy who won the battle lived up the street from you.
But these days, hip hop is a global multifaceted force, and what “the best” means now isn’t what it meant when Kool Moe Dee went after Busy Bee at Harlem World in ’81. (Yes, I owned a Beef DVD.)
You don’t have to prove anything to anyone anymore. That can be a good or bad thing depending on your values, but there are more avenues and definitions of success in hip hop today than ever before, whether that means you’re a megastar that can sell out arenas or you’ve got yourself a small internet following and you can pay your rent off your music.
So what I’m really trying to say is this: If a sense of competition inspires you to get out of bed in the morning, let alone make music, then by all means follow your heart. However, if battle raps bore you and you just want to make music about whatever interests you, then you shouldn’t have to worry about whether the asshole in the Supreme hat thinks you’re “real hip hop” or not.
"Control" is not a diss track. It's a statement of who he thinks is his competition. All Kendrick was really trying to say was that he wants a place in the pantheon. When you’re listing the untouchable greatest rappers of all time, he wants you to add a comma somewhere in that list and follow it with his name. However, I think the flaw in the way he presented his point is the assertion that his rise has to be at anyone else’s expense. It doesn't.
Rappers are not athletes. Their job shouldn’t be to "win" or "lose." (Unless you’re doing a freestyle battle thing, but you know what I’m talking about.) Fans don’t flock to you because you’ve proven you can outsell this rapper or beat that rapper. They do it because you create effective music and you make them want to dance or think or revel in a certain energy.
Kendrick will be in the pantheon regardless of whatever any of the rappers on his list do. And maybe some of those rappers will join him regardless of whatever Kendrick does. Nobody has to be “the best.” That doesn’t mean anything anymore. We, the fans, will have stupid debates. You, the rapper, just need to make music.
Let’s stop pigeonholing what hip hop has to be and focus more on what it can be.
Of all the bad fan behavior in this article, this is what I'm personally the most guilty of doing. Also, a lot of what I’m saying here could apply to the previous sections, but there’s a more specific point I want to make.
Now then, as it may have become clear to you, I don’t like Drake.
I haven’t spent as much time with his music as I should have before writing that previous sentence. But based on the songs I've listened to, I don’t find what he has to say interesting, I don’t think he raps or sings in a way I find particularly compelling, and even at his most energetic and radio friendly, I personally find him kind of boring. Most of the time, those feelings don’t bubble over into anything other than indifference. In fact, the only time I’ve found myself actually getting mad at Drake was over “Hotline Bling,” which is essentially the song version of trapping a woman in the corner of the bar and yelling “WHY DON’T YOU LIKE NICE GUYS?!?!” That, and the “Is this a world tour or your girl’s tour” line in “Back to Back” makes him sound like a douchebag frat boy.
I’ll admit that I’m a little bit more a dick than I need to be about it when I’m discussing Drake with my friends, and sometimes when I feel particularly shitty, I’ll go re-read Big Ghost’s Take Care review.
But at the end of the day, I think Drake has a right to exist. Drake is famous for the same reasons most pop stars are famous. He’s good looking, he makes crowd-pleasing music about relatable subject matter, and he’s a decent entertainer. He has a draw, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with liking him, even if he doesn’t fit my definition of a "good rapper" and he doesn’t make music that appeals to me personally.
You should like whatever you like. You should be passionate. What you shouldn’t do is badger people who dislike what you like or try to make them feel shitty because you like grimy street hip hop and others want something they can dance to. The ideal situation is that a rapper can make a living creating whatever they want to create and fans have access to as many different types of music as possible. The more variety, the better.
Case in point: There was a time, mainly in my late middle school/early high school days, where literally the only rappers I liked were the conscious Soulquarian left-field Dave Chappelle’s Block Party rappers. Mos Def and Talib Kweli and The Roots and the like. To me, this was one of the richest eras of all hip hop and some of the albums that came from this movement are still some of my all-time favorites. However, during this time in my life, if you weren’t rapping about politics or spiritual uplift or whatever, than you were a sellout. You were a part of the machine, and you were enabling a system that kept what I considered quality music away from the masses.
In reality, I was cutting myself off from what other rappers had to offer. Eventually, I grew up. Now I can say I like this:
And this:
And this:
And this:
There might be some teenybopper rappers who say they’re better than Pac. You don’t have to listen to them. There might be a scary looking dude rapping about how he’s going to kill your whole family. Guess what? You don’t have to listen to him either. But consider dipping your toes in whatever the other person’s listening to, and restrain your impulse to lob insults. Hip hop has so much to offer, and there’s no point in limiting it for yourself or trying to limit it for others.
Drake is one the most popular artists alive right now. I don’t like him, yet I still feel more invested in hip hop than I’ve ever been because there’s simply so much to choose from. Maybe I’ll listen to some grimy gangster shit. Or maybe some weirdo experimental stuff. I don’t know. The point is that I’ll listen to whatever I want. Because I can.
Let’s occasionally take the literal minute or two it takes to find an underground rapper.
Why do underground fans constantly feel the need to tear down whoever's the big mainstream rapper at the moment? Sure, mainstream fans can be breathtakingly dense in certain situations and mainstream rappers don’t always make the best music. However, I’d argue that it’s because nine times out of ten, there’s an underground rapper who’s been doing what a mainstream rapper does a lot better for a lot longer, but that rapper doesn’t get the same recognition because of elements that have nothing to do with making quality music. “1-800-273-8255” is fine, but does it have as much emotional impact and depth as Joyner Lucas’s “I’m Sorry?” For my money, no. But Logic is the established artist, so he gets the radio play.
Hip hop, like all music genres, has a bit of a star fucker mentality. If you’re not a big popular act who makes songs that bump in the car and you take a little longer to get to the hook, there are certain fans who’ll say that you have no value. Of course, you don’t need me to point out the problem with that logic, but what we’re really talking about is opposing sensibilities. Some people want to dance and vibe out. Some want lyrics. They don’t often see eye to eye.
However, I think that hip hop fans should be open to everything, and that hip hop would be better off if we the fans were a bit more adventurous. It’s one thing to not know about X rapper. It’s another thing to make a decision not to look for anything outside of what you hear on the radio or in a club. (Or your school dance, depending on your age.)
There was a time when rappers were harder to find and the radio was everything if you didn’t want to subscribe to a magazine or make friends with the people at the record store. But that was before the internet. You don’t have an excuse not to try new music anymore.
So for the sake of communicating what I want to talk about without being more condescending than I already have been, I googled “cool underground rapper” and clicked on the first link I saw. It was the Ranker list of the best underground rappers. Let’s see what we’ve got.
MF Doom? One of the best technical rappers ever. Immortal Technique? Exactly the kind of political rapper you may need right now, and it’s been too long since we’ve heard from him. Tech N9ne? Honestly, I haven’t actually spent that much time with his music so I don’t really have an opinion, but maybe I’ll go check some of his stuff out after I’m done writing this. Atmosphere? If you like your hip hop a little more introspective and abstract, then I couldn’t recommend them more. Big L? Lifestylez ov da Poor & Dangerous is one of the grimiest hip hop albums ever made, and it’s incredible. Aesop Rock? Embarrassingly enough, while I own a sizable portion of his discography, I haven’t spent a whole lot of time with his music, though I’ve yet to hear a verse from him I didn’t like.
My point is that it took me five seconds to find this list, and if you’ve never heard of one or two or all of these rappers, you now have a good place to start. True, one or two of these rappers might be a little too big in certain circles to be considered fully “underground,” and the difference between “mainstream” and “indie” can get a little blurry these days. But if we define “underground rapper” as “rapper who may not be a household name and doesn’t get all the radio play,” than this is as good as start as any.
Maybe you want to go even deeper underground, and this is where social media and sites like Dead End Hip Hop or DJBooth can help you. There are plenty of corners to look through. Hell, here's some rappers of various underground levels that I like:
If there’s a subtext to this article, it’s that I would like the hip hop community, whether it be fans or artists or anyone in between, to think a little more about what they’re doing and why they’re doing it. I want us all to be a little less quick to tribalism and rabid fandom. It’s healthy to try new things, and there’s a lot of great music out there. Go have fun.
Let’s stop pushing the narrative that It Was Written is anywhere near as good as Illmatic.
Given the recent abuse allegations that have come out about Nas over the last few weeks, he's a bit of a dicey subject at the moment.
However, this has been driving me insane for a long time.
It Was Written is a very good mafioso rap album with plenty of merit that deserves respect and repeat listens. Illmatic bridged a gap between introspection and crime rap in a way that never felt as textured and rich before, and it sounds like it came straight out of someone’s diary. It revolutionized hip hop forever. You know damn well It Was Written never reached those highs and it never could.
Let’s come to grips with the fact that there's no such thing as a "perfect" album.
Hip hop fans are a passionate bunch. When they find an artist or an album to love, they love hard and they love deep. They love so hard in fact that the more intellectually immature amongst hip hop fans won’t even acknowledge a single flaw in their favorite albums and throw around the word “perfect” so much that it no longer means anything. And it’s (partially) because of this behavior that a lot of the conversations around classic albums are, from a distance, embarrassing.
No album is perfect, and this is ultimately a good thing because the ability to identify a flaw in an album you love also demonstrates a number of healthy behaviors. Mainly the one where you can actually think about an album instead of blindly calling it great and plugging your ears and going “la la la la la” if somebody brings up a criticism. It shows that you know what you value, and that you’re an actual human being capable of making decisions for yourself.
(If you think this whole article is an excuse to go on a passive aggressive rant about hip hop Twitter well then… then… okay, you’re not entirely wrong.)
So to demonstrate my point, here’s a list of flaws in albums I personally love. (Not including homophobia or misogyny for that’s a whole other can of worms we’ll talk about later.) Yes, a lot of these are nitpicks and small issues, and I don’t expect you to agree with all of these gripes. But that’s the point. These are my gripes, these are my nitpicks, and I have them because I took a second or two to think about them. (Also, I’d get into deeper non-stupid bullshit issues I have with some of these albums, but this article’s already long as it is.)
- Mos Def, Black on Both Sides (My favorite album of all time across all genres): The argument Mos makes on “Rock ’N’ Roll” is one hundred percent valid and needed to me made. That said, I never liked the slow sing-y flow thing he does on the track and if I’m in a bad mood, it makes me really impatient.
- Biggie, Ready to Die: “Fuck Me (Interlude)” shouldn’t have ever seen the light of day. That, and the decision to censor the word "pregnant" in "Gimme the Loot" always struck me as strange and distracting.
- Jay-Z, Reasonable Doubt: I’ve always hated the Scarface shit on the beginning of “Can’t Knock The Hustle” and “Brooklyn’s Finest.” And I mean fucking hated it.
- Kanye West, My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy: I personally could’ve done without the Nicki intro on “Dark Fantasy. (Imagine hitting “play” and the first thing you ever heard was *BOOOM* “Can we get much higher…”) I’ve also never been one hundred percent on board with the Chris Rock bit at the end of “Blame Game.” Not because it isn’t funny, but because I’m not sure if it was tonally necessary or effective. Also, you know... fuck Kanye and his MAGA hat.
- EPMD, Strictly Business: “The Steve Martin.” Love that beat though.
- Kendrick Lamar, good kid, m.A.A.d city: Drake’s verse distracts from an important moment in the story. Also, "Cartoons and Cereal" should've been on it, as it's an incredible song that fits the story well. (I also think that Kendrick's most obnoxious fans have kind of ruined "Backseat Freestyle" for me. Yes, I realize that neither this point or the previous one are the album's fault.)
- Wu-Tang Clan, Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers): I love “Wu-Tang Clan Ain’t Nuthing ta Fuck Wit.” I love it so goddamn much it hurts. I’ve always felt like there was a better use of the final minute and twenty seconds of the three and a half minute song than a long shout-out outro. An actual verse, for example.
- Eminem, The Marshall Mathers LP: Bizarre’s verse on “Amityville” sounds like someone trying too hard to write like Eminem.
- Madvillain, Madvillainy: “Shadows of Tomorrow.” I love Sun Ra, but everything said on this track is either the kind of faux-deep “philosophy” you think is cool in high school or it’s total gibberish.
- Outkast, ATLiens: “Wailin’” is too short. “But Garth, that’s not actually a flaw—“ That’s a minute or two of ATLiens that I could’ve had but don’t. It’s a flaw.
Again, I love these albums, and to be perfectly honest, I don’t even care about most of the flaws I just pointed out. (Except for the Scarface stuff on Reasonable Doubt, which I hate genuinely and deeply.) The point is that you can acknowledge that an album isn’t perfect and still feel just as strongly for it as you would’ve even if it was. Or maybe we’re of a similar mind, and you think that flaws make an album more interesting.
Finding music that speaks to you shouldn’t mean that you turn your brain off, and it definitely doesn’t mean that you need to war with anybody just because they think Jay has the weakest verse on “Monster” or that Chronic 2001, while a great album, is a little overrated. (*Clears throat and doesn’t act suspicious.*) Great albums are great albums. You don’t need to defend them so much.
Let’s stop creating an environment where older rappers should feel embarrassed if they want to keep making music.
Did any of you listen to Phonte’s new album No News Is Good News?
It’s an album about getting older and changing with the passage of time. It’s about needing to live healthier so you can be around longer for the people you love. It’s about the looming responsibility of taking care of your parents. It’s about fatherhood. It’s about finding real love, and not the kind of “I met X person at the club” love, but actual lasting soul-soothing love. It is, in short, an album about being a grown man, and though at the time I’m writing this I am 26 years old and don’t have nearly as much on my plate, I love this album.
It’s the kind of album that needs to exist, and as much as I love coke raps and gang raps and all types of debauchery in between, sometimes it’s nice to know that there’s an adult in the room writing mature music with something to say. A lot of hip hop thrives off an “I don’t give a fuck” attitude, and it makes me weirdly emotional when someone out there is rapping because they actually care.
Unfortunately, someone had to invent the term “old head,” and with the click of the “send” button, the idea that hip hop has to be by and for young people continues to exist. (Sidebar: I hate “old head.” It’s a term clearly invented by people who don’t know much about hip hop to dismiss anyone who actually knows what they’re talking about.)
The point should be an obvious one: Hip hop needs different perspectives in order to keep evolving. This is the case with every genre, and it will be true as long as music exists. Hip hop is (relatively speaking) an incredibly young genre, and the fact that hip hop reached a certain age during the bloom of the internet means that its going to have a trajectory much different than that of rock or jazz. But that doesn’t mean we still have to rigidly stick to hip hop as kid’s music just because we don’t know a positive narrative for success at an older age yet. (Though Jay’s getting up there, and 4:44 is one hell of an album.)
But honestly, the part of the age bias in hip hop that annoys me the most isn’t the fan aspect, but the attitude perpetuated by other rappers that it’s embarrassing to still be rapping when you’re older. Around a year ago, André 3000 did an interview with Complex where he said, “When I was 25, I said I don’t want to be a 30 year old rapper. I’m 42 now, and I feel more and more that way. Do I really want to be 50 years old up there doing that? When I watch other rappers that are my age I commend them, but I just wonder where the inspiration is coming from. At this stage I’m really more focused on what I am going to be doing ten years from now. And I hope to God it won’t be rapping.”
To be fair, what André is actually talking about is going through the intense hustle of creating and putting out new music. The months of recording and getting every song to where you think it needs to be, the tours, the PR, the so on, and the so forth. However, when I was being lazy and reading the quote out of context on other pop culture sites, it rubbed me the wrong way. It read to me like rapping at 50 would be humiliating and that you should be ashamed of yourself. I didn’t know why, and it drove me crazy that André was potentially discouraging others from rapping just because they're older.
Again, I was reading the quote out of context. That isn’t what he’s saying at all. However, accident or not, André is far from the first rapper to perpetuate this attitude. Sometimes, it’s some rapper at their peak saying they're going to retire at 30 for no other reason then that's what's expected of them. Sometimes, it’s some teenager on the radio who’s claiming that he’s better than someone who’s been making music for years for the sole reason that he’s young. Both bum me out in equal measure.
The only reason anyone should be discouraged from rapping is if they’re making music that’s offensive or just plain garbage, not because you’ve been around a little longer and you’ve gained some wisdom. By their very nature, older rappers can write something that some kid on SoundCloud who’s barely out of puberty doesn’t have the perspective to say, and that makes them valuable.
Make affective music. That’s all that really matters in the end.
Let’s stop using “the club” as a metric for what is and what is not an effective song.
To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure this one is as much of a problem now as it was when I was in high school or my early days of college. However, dear reader, I am not a mature person, and now that I have this internet space I’ll complain about what I please.
There’s a sect of hip hop fans that only like songs that work in the club or at a party. They can only extract meaning or joy from a song if they can feel it on a purely surface level. I know this to be the case not only because a few of the people in this tribe are my best friends, but there was a moment where this was the only thing that mattered to the corners of the internet I happened to inhabit at the time. (In other words, this was before I discovered Okayplayer.) To these people, all the lyrics and production don’t mean shit if you can’t dance or get drunk or work out to it, and music is a means of boosting certain chemical reactions in the brain. It’s not a vessel for thought or emotional meaning.
And look, if you’re one of those people, know that although you often drive me fucking insane, I still love you and I’m not trying to boo the DJ out of the club or undock your iPhone from your shitty bluetooth speakers. I don’t categorically hate all hip hop that’s meant for partying. But I’m not going to pretend that it’s what I generally gravitate to either, and just because I can enjoy dumb music doesn’t mean I can’t spot what they’re doing. Let us ask ourselves what you actually need in order to have something that can be called a “club banger.” What are the ingredients?
You definitely need bass. You definitely need a hook. Nowadays, you definitely need some ad-libs. Preferably, at some point you will mention in your song that you’re in the club. Preferably, you’re going to bring up dancing. Preferably, you’re going to talk about sex or the desire to have sex. Preferably, you will at some point bring up some pointlessly expensive alcohol that tastes like shit. Preferably, you will bring up some sort of act of violence, ideally involving a firearm. And finally, you need some sort of X factor, which nine times out of ten means a quotable enough line that you can drunkenly shout with all your friends and alienate as many people at the party as possible. (Liberal arts college at the height of “Drunk in Love” was a fucking nightmare.)
Combine two or more those ingredients, and you basically have something that’ll work. Am I being dismissive and reductive? Yes. In fact, most of these apply to every genre, particularly the hook, the dancing, and the sex. Are these songs bad? No. Or at least not all of them.
Can you enjoy this music ironically? Absolutely! I have an album I keep in my iTunes library called “Stupid Music” where I put embarrassing guilty pleasures, weird stuff I find on the internet, or dumb shit that’s meant to be enjoyed sarcastically, and I listen to this album/playlist/whatever all the time.
Ahh, look at all that dumb shit. And honestly, I don't think some of this stuff is even that dumb.
However, genres go down hill when they become too disposable. As Questlove once explained better than I ever could, there was once such a thing as decent disco music, but besides the usual racism and homophobia, it became too assembly line and canned. As a result, the backlash against disco grew and damaged black music for years.
From the ashes, we got hip hop. If hip hop ultimately goes through the same cycle, I won’t be happy, but at least I’ll understand. Not that disco ever had the reach or influence of hip hop and this is not a thing that’s going to foreseeably happen. But everything ends, and even if it doesn’t, then maybe my appreciation of it will.
However, I refuse to see it die or lose its meaning because there are some fans who can only process surface level stimuli that hear actual inspired hip hop that was meant to offer insight and shout “I CAN’T DANCE TO THIS!” Hip hop should not be dictated by a bunch of twenty-somethings who spend their paychecks on watches and pre-game drinks or bottle service. You should not be rewarded for closed-mindedness. If you want to dance, then dance. But don’t make it my fucking problem.
Let’s stop using album sales as a measure of artistic value.
I use to dream of a time when I would feel like this point wouldn’t have to be made. “An artist is great because they sell a lot” is a sentiment so obviously flawed that it's barely worth talking about But alas, rationality rarely triumphs, and if we forced all the most obnoxious internet fandoms across all mediums of art into a massive battle royale, J. Cole fans would emerge with blood drenched hands shouting “FOREST HILLS DRIVE WENT PLATINUM WITH NO FEATURES!”
I couldn't help myself. I have a folder on my computer that's just screenshots of J. Cole fans being morons.
Let’s get some nitpicks out of the way first, and for the sake of me not tearing my hair out, let's also temporarily brush aside basic logical fallacies. First of all, album sales are not a measure of quality. They are a measure of popularity, be it in a specific moment in time or the star power of the artist or band who put the album out, and even then, “star power” can include a lot of factors that have little to do with talent or making music. A poor album by a popular artist can sell incredibly well, even if the fans themselves don’t like it, and a flash in the pan nuisance can sell just as much given the right circumstances.
Put it another way: I still enjoy watching uninformed rap fans learn that MC Hammer’s Please Hammer, Don’t Hurt ‘Em is one of the best selling hip hop albums of all time. Indeed, this album sold twenty million plus copies, most of which was based on the popularity of “U Can’t Touch This.” Yet by the logic of the most obnoxious Cole fans, I should be seeing as many memes and tweets about Hammer as I do about Cole.
But Hammer’s sales lead me to another point: In this day and age, we measure popularity through different means. Now you have to factor in streaming and Youtube and all these other methods of consuming music that have little to do with handing your card or your cash to a person behind a counter or a website or an app. And while it’s easy to equate streaming numbers with actual album sales, I’m not so quick to make the comparison because streaming allows you to be less selective. In other words, you wouldn’t be so quick to stream an album or a song if that stream cost you ten dollars. Streaming grants you the ability to do whatever you want and think little of how it effects your wallet, whereas buying an album is a choice that requires you to think about your checkbook, which makes pickiness a financial necessity.
There’s plenty more nitpicks we could make. The institutions that are in place to make sure major releases do well, advertising budgets, licensing, and so on. However, the only point that really matters is that this is your basic ad populum argument. Your “one million J. Cole fans can’t be wrong” point that’s inherently flawed because yes, in fact, they can. And if you don’t believe me, there are fifteen million people who bought Vanilla Ice’s To The Extreme that have something they need to tell you.
I haven’t actually sat down with a J. Cole album, though I have every intention of doing so soon enough. This used to be because of general laziness, but now it has mostly to do with the behavior of Cole’s fans. And you’re right, I shouldn’t dismiss an artist based on the behavior of their fanbase and it’s not an artist’s job to babysit Reddit and step in whenever they’re fucking up. I’m merely saying that I’m going to listen to Cole because he’s an artist who’s inspired a lot of conversation and passion, not because he’s sold X amount of albums.
I can’t promise you that I’ll like J. Cole, but I can promise you that you’ll never hear the popularity argument coming from me. It’s not because I already know I’m wrong or anything like that. It’s because if I was on your feed trying to convince you that some artist is the greatest of all time because they moved a lot of units without any features, I would feel incredibly foolish and I would stop. I would stop immediately. Like right now. Stop it.
Let’s stop being homophobic, transphobic, misogynist, and overall dickheads when it comes to inclusivity.
A year or two ago, I listened to Goodie Mob’s Soul Food for the first time. It’s an incredible album that overflows with soul and empathy that vividly details intense struggle. But it also delivers a message of hope, transcendence, and that one day, the black community will overcome the waking nightmare that is American society.
I became obsessed with Soul Food. I listened to a track or two from it everyday, and with each listen, my fondness for it grew even further. I even reached the point I rarely reach anymore where I obnoxiously tried to force all my friends to listen to it.
One day, I excitedly sat down with Still Standing, and with it, Khujo’s verse on “Fly Away.” The verse goes like this:
“Now get, don't let the doorknob hit you/Where the good Lord split you/ I’m hearing rumors too/That you so gone off that D and PCP, that thoughts/Of letting another man sample your wine haunts your mind/Look like the color pink/Rubbing elbows with the wrong folks/Making kin breach they skin/Secretaries terminated after seeing the boss pack fudge/Dirty men need to do more than bathe, huh/How’s about burned at the stake/Like the rest of them sodomites/Even though you had beautiful kids and a wife/He still bent both ways, ain't no due process/For boys that become girls or versa vica(sic)/Field n****s control this/Pin the hollow point tip/On this gay rights activists/A ghetto game we all familiar with/Now how many licks, did it take, to get you wet/You ends today, fly away"
Being a hip hop fan can be hard sometimes. Your heroes often let you down, and you have to hear a lot of true ugliness when it comes to lyrics about women and anyone in the LBGT+ community. Thanks to the passage of time, the privileges of being a straight white male, and the effect of hearing certain terms in hip hop over and over and over again, I can handle the occasional slur or insensitive comment. But it’s more like a tolerance than an immunity. I’ve injected so much filth into my system over the years that I can’t help but be numb to smaller doses of it, even if I didn’t want to and I know I shouldn’t.
However, I can only handle so much. After listening to Khujo’s verse, I turned my back on Still Standing, and to a certain degree, Goodie Mob in general. I still hold Soul Food in high reverence, and I’d still recommend it. But I haven’t really been able to go back to it because that feeling I had when I first listened to it has been mostly snuffed out by the hypocrisy. You can’t make an album stressing the need for equality and then turn around and spit this backwards trash. Now much of the message seems fake to me.
It’s up to you to determine how much this verse influences your views on Goodie Mob as a whole. But It wasn’t hard for me to turn on them. Not in the slightest. There’s no room for this bullshit anymore. It’s that simple.
Bonus: Let’s stop using fake synthy sounding strings in our beats.
They've always sounded like shit. Always.
