I'm White but I still know the definition of O.P.P.

As one of the last true hip-hop heads around these here parts, I must complain about the state of today's hip-hop music. It has become god-awful. As Nas so eloquently puts it in "Hip Hop Is Dead"

Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game
Reminiscin' when it wasn't all business.

And I say hip-hop, not rap. Rap music is a subset of hip-hop. Hip-hop music contains the rap, but it's so much more than that. And Lil Wayne is the figurehead of the new movement that is pulling hip-hop away from when it really mattered. I don't get it when Lil Wayne opines:

Every man on offense Single-tary defense
Super-duper-extra-much-really-very-street shit
That is how I keeps it R.I.P. Beepsy
I do it how I do it 'cuz I know my niggas see me.

He might have had an aneurysm during the second line but no one noticed nor cared. I'm not just talking about Lil Wayne, I'm talking about every Lil: Lil Bow Wow, Lil Jon, Lil Boosie, Lil Scrappy, Lil Rob, Lil Whyte, Lil Mo, Lil Flip, Lil Troy, Lil Cease, Lil Fizz, and even Lil Abner (And every Young: Young Buck, Young Joc, Young MC, Young Dro, Young Jeezy Young Berg). I make a noticable exception for Lil Romeo. Because there is nothing like a cute little 12 year-old butchering one of the most influential and iconic rap songs of all time:



The aspect that stands out in today's rap music is not the lyrical beauty or the raw, perfectly complementary beats-- that would be what good music used to be. It's the unoriginality, highlighted by massive overproduction that creates heavy basslines to drown out any horrible music and rapping. As long as you can dance to it, then it's a hit. I mean, the real stars here are the producers. These days, you can take any million dollar beat from a Scott Storch, Timbaland, or Just Blaze and scream incomprehensible racist rants that don't make any sense. Or you can go the other way and make a sweet love song that is ridiculously sexually explicit and has been done a million times. Or you can take any recognizable song and sample the shit out of it-- The Diplomats have built their entire career off of this tactic. I think rap music is being made to become top-selling ringtones.

I don't expect every album to come out to be like Nas's Illmatic. But I wish they were inspired by it. I still want the music to invoke powerful emotions. Has our standard for good hip-hop music fallen that low? The #1 hip-hop song on Itunes right now is "Right Round" by Flo Rider. Tell me how this song is any different from a pop song by Pink or Gwen Stefani. Soulja Boy? Are you kidding me? Asher Roth at #6-- the fact that this guy is an exact rip off of Eminem just shows you how desperate we are for quality hip-hop music. Unfortunately, the emcee's who had true talent are succumbing to this new trend. Kanye West, who is one of the most visionary rappers in the game, puts out 808s & Heartbreak. Common, who's Be might be the greatest hip-hop album this decade, puts out Universal Mind Control. I booted in my mouth after listening to both these pseudo-techno-pop-bullshit albums full of wierd and jumpy noises (AND I was on the treadmill at the gym when this happened so, doubly embarrasing).

I blame Master P's "Make 'Em Say Uhh" and the advent of No Limit Records for laying the groundwork.




Quick thought: How many rap songs come out a month that contain these lyrics"

I'm down here slangin, rollin with these hustlers
Tryin to get rid of all you haters and you bustas
Steppin on toes, break a niggaz nose
In the projects niggaz anything goes

Has anyone even realized yet that Mystikal was just basically screaming rambling nonsense out of tune and out of rhythm on every song? By the way, Mystikal is currently serving a six year prison sentence in the Louisiana State Prison for sexual battery and extortion.


There is hope though. Lupe Fiasco is by far the best current rap artist out there right now (I put Eminem on the 5-year DL due to excessive sleeping pill consumption and eating). He is the future of where hip-hop music is headed. His music is entirely unique, his delivery is flawless, and the production is nuanced and layered, perfectly complementing his laid-back flow. There are many who are creating magic in the underground; Brother Ali, Atmosphere, Murs, AZ, Edan, Aesop Rock, and Josh Weinberg. In the mainstream we still have the Clipse, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Outkast, The Roots, and Eminem (when he returns). Jay-Z's last solo album was a complete disaster, and he hasn't been on top of his game since The Black Album, so he is in limbo. And even though I didn't enjoy Nas's last album, his music is still raw as hell, basically the antithesis of Lil Wayne (who many mistakingly label as "raw"). Each one of these artists continue to stretch themselves and seem to make music that they actually care about.

Aliya Ewing, a writer from www.hiphopdx.com, makes a great point about Lil Wayne in her most recent post:

Lil Wayne (or a rapper with similar musical themes and persona) makes sub-par music with themes like “making it rain”… young kids who don’t know any better (or don’t care) support it because ‘it’s just music’ and they wanna dance. Plus, everything they watch on MTV and other channels geared towards them is centered around promiscuity, materialism, and ignorance, so Lil Wayne ’s music is a soundtrack to their current lifestyles…ad agencies jump on this like piranhas because of the insane purchasing power of their demographic (according to some studies, industry spending on advertising to children has exploded in the past decade, increasing from a mere $100 million in 1990 to more than $2 billion in 2000, and has been rising since then). They do hours of research and create pie charts that map out the amount of money to be made (which is a lot), then decide: if Lil Wayne is what the kids think they want , then Lil Wayne is what the kids will get. (Because if our children want to eat sugary-sweet pie until they are comatosed or vomit, we should let them, right?)….So Wayne gets crazy endorsement deals and record deals from the executives who are after cash…then after Wayne floods the airwaves, a mass group of struggling rappers who want a piece of the American pie realize that Wayne ’s style is now being slated as “the future of Hip Hop” so they start to emulate his style and musical themes…and that’s my theory on how we end up with Hip Hop’s demise and the rise of unacceptable musical leaders. Lil Wayne by far is not the first rapper to make detrimental music, but he IS one of the most visible and influential leaders of mainstream Hip Hop right now

That's why she writes for a mainstream music website and I implement Google AdSense in an attempt to try to make money off my puny blog and fail miserably.

95% of hip-hop artists don't have any real talent. How do you think Lil Wayne would do on 'American Idol'? Rappers can't compete on American Idol because rapping isn't really that hard or take much talent anyways. Therefore it takes a very talented and orginial rapper to create really good music and stand out. It's hard to separate the good from the bad, and the American public's inability to do so is creating an environment that rewards the bad and hides the good.

I am not saying that you can't make great rap music that you can also dance to. My current favorite hip-hop group are The Hilltop Hoods. They are already the most popular and best-selling hip-hop group of all-time in Australia. They are simply original.



Here's hoping that Mos Def's 'The Ecstatic', Lupe's 'LupEND', Dre's 'Detox', and Eminem's 'Relapse' all deliver the goods in 2009-- and also that Joaquin Phoenix's rap career is a joke.