Awards are dead. Too few nominations. Maybe next year people might give a shit.
Anyways, here's the full text of the essay I tried to post on my distractions remix. Written fully by me:
Hip hop is dying. And yes, I know Nas has said that before, and his album of the same name created a bit of a stir, but nothing has changed, and those with an interest in the pop culture machine quickly sidetracked any real conversation about the subject to make it sound like Nas was hating on the south. I can not know Nas' true intentions with that album, whether he truly cares or it was a publicity stunt. But what I can do is interpret what I think hip hop is dying means.
There is a plague amongst artists. Dudes are coming into hip hop thinking of it as a quick way to make money rather than a combination of art forms. These dudes know nothing of the culture, nor anything about hip hop other than sometimes the producing/rapping side of things. These guys seem to think that getting signed to a record label, hitting the mainstream and making millions of dollars is the definition of success for an artist. They do everything possible to sound like all the guys you hear on the radio, neglecting to think about two things:
1)Nobody cares about you if you sound exactly like somebody else, because that guy is already on the radio. Why would anybody want to play you if they can play the real person instead. And 2) The labels have already manufactured an image for these superstars. I have a large amount of respect for the labels and the singers/rappers they work with, but these guys are not artists. They follow more of a science-business mix. They hone in on what sort of style they can sell, then they kick the machine into full gear and watch as people are bombarded with words and images telling them that a certain artist is hot. Then, the labels follow the formula to repeat. This isn't hip hop, this isn't art. You can photocopy the Mona Lisa all day long and it doesn't change the fact that art isn't your talent.
Yet, despite this, I still hear people telling me that you are not an artist if you haven't gotten signed. Then, when I challenge them on their views, they back it up by saying that they are correct because CEO's and radio personalities would agree with them. Wake up. Of course a CEO is going to tell you that you can only be legitimate if you work with them. Of course these guys will tell you anything to make you buy into their system. Even then though, your average wannabe rich rapper will still trust the system, and trust the CEO's and labels, who make money off exploiting people, while still buying into the don't trust the police bullshit. Police are there to try to keep the peace, yes there are bad apples, but for the most part, they are there to help you, while the CEO's are their to screw you. Yet, you still believe the CEO's? Again I must say it: wake up.
But again, I said hip hop is dieing, not just rap. Graffiti is dieing. The B-Boy is almost forgotten. The true art of turntablism has been pushed back underground, and even there it is harder to find in many places then it once was. Yet, none of this is discussed. All you hear is this bullshit about Nas saying the south is killing hip hop and the south saying Nas is jealous of their money. First off, that's a horrible attitude. Instead of denying being the decay of an art form like any true MC would, you get Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne on the radio talking about how Nas just wants their money. Second, no, the south did not kill hip hop. What has been hurting the rapping part of the art is how suddenly everybody wants to sound like the stereotypical south rather than sound unique, or sound like themselves.
This brings me to my next thought. The loss of originality. As much as I don't personally like soulja boy or T-Pain, at the very least they at least tried something new. Soulja boy may be garbage, but he gets my respect because he is a far different type of garbage than every other mainstream artist you hear. T-Pain pioneered the use of the auto-tune effect in rap and R&B, which garners my respect. Then, you get the copycats again. Seems like all of the sudden everybody and their dog have decided that auto-tune makes them the shit. It doesn't. You are not original, you are not a visionary, you do not sound cool, learn how to sing or shut the fuck up. Once you hop on a bandwagon and start playing follow the leader like a lot of people have with auto-tune, you cease to be an artist, and become a copycat. I've seen dudes sell out to the mainstream despite not having sold anything or getting any real benefit from it, and it sickens me that they would not only sell out, but shortchange themselves while losing any creativity they previously had. Even worse, these people then listen to the actual art and have the nerve to criticize originality for it's non-conformance to the mainstream.
Then there is the decline in the quality of beef. While it would be nice to pretend that everybody should be able to get along, some people just won't see eye-to-eye, and so beef will occur. At the same time, you should expect these 2 people to still realize that this is a problem between musicians (for the lack of a better word) and should be settled in the music. Seems like every time I turn around dudes are challenging each other to actual fights, slapping people's Cousins, and just generally doing stupid shit rather than sitting down and working on actual track. Then there is the flip side, dudes who release so many battle tracks that they cease to have an effect. Here I'm thinking of guys like 50 cent, who at this point I wouldn't be surprised if I found out he was beefing with my old kindergarten teacher. People aren't taking there time to make there attacks great. Instead they lay back on the same tired cliche's and go with the quantity over quality idea. To these people I say: Wake up, and step up.
I already know I'm going to be challenged on what I'm saying. I will hear "you're just a white guy from the suburbs, what do you know about hip hop". Apparently, more than you. Hip hop is an art, and art is universal. It can be appreciated and understood by people of any culture, so long as they allow themselves to see the art. I can see it, I know many others who can, but a lot of people look at it solely as a business, and that's where the problem lays.
Let me break it down:
there is a plague killing hip hop.
If you look at hip hop as a way to make money, you are part of the plague
If you think rap is the same as hip hop AND consider yourself a rapper MC, you are part of the plague.
If you dismiss sampling as thievery, you are part of the plague
If you think grafitti is the same as tagging, you are part of the plague.
If you think that your little shoulder dance and bump and grind are part of B-Boying, fuck you, you are part of the plague.
If you think being ignorant and dumb is cool, you are part of the plague.
I'll let you guys post more If's here.
InGenius
Two things: I agree. And I disagree.
I agree:
Hip-hop, the word, has now come to mean something wholly different from it's original interpretations, and thus, is "dying" in the sense of losing it's roots and it's originality. Mainstream artists that call what they do "hip-hop" are lying to themselves more often than not, especially people like Nas who I respect as an artist and a person, but who has lost touch with his own roots, truth be told. His entire "Southern music is killing my beloved Hip-hop" was laughable since, in all reality, that which was Hip-hop died the moment it left the burroughs and hit MTV. And that includes Nas' own tracks, because hip-hop was a movement, a lifestyle, a culture, not a type of music.
Laying claim to Hip-hop is like laying claim to an eagle, a river, or snow on a mountaintop. It's like laying claim to being God simply because you can paint a picture or sing a song. Your images and words come from a source, and you do not own that source. In the same frame of reference, Hip-hop comes from a source which none of us can lay claim to, and it is more than just MC's and DJ's, though hip-hop as music started with these two integral parts. As Wyze stated, we're losing some of the other parts of hip-hop as culture: bomb art, b-boys, parties in the park. Instead, "hip-hop" has become whose gun is bigger, whose hood is grimier, and whose nose is whitest from the 'caine. And we're all to blame for it, not just the South. Remember, Mims is from Manhattan, not Atlanta.
Pimp C once replied to a question regarding the "death of hip-hop" being caused by the South, and more specifically, the music he and Bun B were putting out with other well known southern artists. He said, paraphrased, "Fuck hip-hop. We don't wanna be called hip-hop. What we make is country rap tunes, not some old Hands Up HIgh in the park, happy 'Get Down On The Floor' hip-hop. What we speak on is what's really happenin' in the hoods, the ghettos, the cities where all of our listeners is from." That's the true line in the sand, right there. Hip-hop was made for happy times, for parties, for celebrating. So when a rapper is talking about having money and girls and drugs and clubbin' and shit like that, it's EXACTLY like the hip-hop of yesteryear. But at the same time, it isn't relevant. It isn't what is really happening.
Alot of the best music, the very same music that Pimp C is referencing, which the Hip-hop heads want to decry as killing Hip-hop, is actually all that's left of that happy mentality hip-hop had. Today's hip-hop "expert" almost wants to claim that true hip-hop is about the ghetto, about the toils of the working man, about the dark corners of society that are overlooked by "mainstream" eyes, which is NOT the hip-hop that the first DJ's and MC's envisioned. Yet the very same experts were decrying the death of hip-hop in the 80's when groups like NWA took the forefront with their pictures of realism, speaking about police brutality, gang warfare, etc. Is that not music of, for, and from the "ghetto" that these "experts" now wish to extoll as true hip-hop?
The problem is that "hip-hop" as a description is subjective to each person's opinions and attitudes. What I think is hip-hop you may not agree with. So rather than state that hip-hop is dead, why don't we just state the obvious: Hip-hop will never again be what it once was, regardless of what we feel it once was. Now, let's all move the fuck on and make music. If you like your music happy, then fuckit, go make happy music.
Blasphem-E
that works too