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Hip-hop: No soul, all bling
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by Steve Lampiris
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The song "Y'all Should All Get Lynched" has been submitted as a nominee for Song of the Year and Best Rap Solo Performance categories at next year's Grammy awards. Why not pause for a moment to let that previous sentence sink in.
OK, good. Yes, it's true: an indie rapper named NYOil (no typo there) has released the song in question as his "assault on the state of hip-hop," according to www.prefixmag.com. The song has generated such buzz that known artists on the Grammy Board are backing the track purely out of "disgust with current hip-hop trends," reports www.thuglifearmy.com.
The song opens with NYOil stating that all the "bullshit emcees" are "on notice" and that they deserve the song's title as punishment. Pile on top of that lyrics like "Y'all niggas take a whole lotta shit/ But when a brotha say somethin' y'all are quick to bitch," and, "People floated for a week on New Orleans' streets/ And only Kanye West wasn't scared to speak?" and you have got yourself one very controversial song. Even the music video is causing people to blush — after only two days on YouTube, it was banned.
The current condition of hip-hop is comatose. The once-great medium is now completely stale and overstuffed with bling bling, bitches and more bling. There is not much else of substance being discussed on rap singles anymore. Everything on rap stations nowadays is just bragging rights.
I'll admit that bragging is part of human nature. However, when all someone does is brag, anyone within earshot becomes irritated. It is just nauseating to constantly hear about how a rapper's bling causes his mouth to resemble a chandelier, or just exactly how low a chain can hang. Like I said, in moderation it can be appealing. For every "Y'all shit ain't for real, til y'all ship a mil'/ And ya hit a R&B chick and she fit the bill/ Said she loved my necklace, started relaxin'/ Now that’s what the fuck I call a chain reaction," which is ridiculously clever, there are 12 lines like "My royalty check's the rebirth of Liberace/ Stunt so hard, everybody got to watch me." Honestly, what the hell does that even mean?
I am not here to echo what Russell Simmons and Bill Cosby have said about the current slang trends in hip-hop, because that's not the issue here. Rappers can be vulgar and still make classic records — see The Marshall Mathers LP or AmeriKKKas Most Wanted for evidence. The problem is the lack of substance to the rhymes of today. Eleven years ago saw the release of the Fugee's classic The Score, with its rather deep discussion of racial profiling on "The Beast" and questioning one's roots on "Family Business." This is hip-hop actually conversing about something useful, something authentic — the way hip-hop is supposed to be.
What happened in the short span of a decade? Simple: music for profit. Rap artists appear on MTV wearing $500,000 in jewelry which, in turn, influences young aspiring artists to buy their albums so they can learn to how to become rich, too. This, of course, leads to rappers becoming wealthier and wearing more bling. And the cycle continues. You may notice the rappers of today who do not rap about money, their mic skillz or how many bitches they have generally 1) do not showcase these in their videos on MTV and thus 2) do not get their videos played on MTV. Did anyone see Common's video for "Testify" on MTV more than once? Here is a song that tells a story and has a twist at the end (i.e., engaging lyrical content) and was almost never played. Why not? The song peaked at No. 44 on the Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Singles Chart. Furthermore, the song is only 2Â
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 7:25am):
"If you'd like to learn hear more about rap that doesn't suck"
That could take a long time, Steve.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 10:38am):
I guess that guy has never heard of:
Mos Def
Talib Kweli
Jay Dee
A Tribe Called Quest
De La Soul
The Pharcyde
Jeru the Damaja
KRS-One
MC Lyte
dead prez
The Roots Crew
Madlib
this list could virtually go on forever
all examples of artists not gorged about on MTV/VH1/BET/Clear Channel/etc.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 1:49pm):
"'My royalty check's the rebirth of Liberace/ Stunt so hard, everybody got to watch me.' Honestly, what the hell does that even mean?"
Educate yourself man -- grab a dictionary and look up who Liberace was. It makes perfect sense ... G-Unit is smarter than you think.
Anonymous (September 20, 2007 @ 9:42pm):
Liberace isn't in the dictionary, it's Wikipedia, duckwad.
Anonymous (September 21, 2007 @ 7:13am):
"Educate yourself man -- grab a dictionary and look up who Liberace was. It makes perfect sense ... G-Unit is smarter than you think."
This comment pretty much denotes the intelligence of a G-Unit\50 fan....so while your at it pickup a Thesaurus (Not a dinosaur)and look up G-Unit
Oh and denotes will probably be in the dictionary....under D
Anonymous (May 1, 2008 @ 9:33am):
Hip Hop Is not Dead, or even comatose. The truth is, due to corporate influence Hip Hop with any substance whatsoever has been pushed so far "undaground" that underground eventually became and a sub-genre. Underground used to mean that an artist hasn't broken through into the mainstream market. Sadly Hip Hop with any "nutritous" substance has become so alienaited by record labels that it had to become an entity in itself to survive. I blame this on A&R's who are too lazy to figure out how to market art and the new rappers who follow record trends and forumlas in search of success. If these same rappers would realize that doing what they love and that remaining consistent builds a fanbase rather than following a 10 year old "blueprint"... the money would eventually follow.
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