What Happened to "Real Hip-Hop"
What happened to REAL Hip-Hop
By Danny Boy
For my first official post, I want to talk about the "state of hip-hop". It's not some profound idea or insight to say that hip-hop has changed drastically. I remember the days of saving lunch money to buy the new album everyone at school was talking about. Back when it was a total experience. You get home, open the album, look at the cover art, read the writing and producer credits, and then listen to the album as you continue looking through the book and reading lyrics (if they were included).
My first exposure to hip-hop was A Tribe Called Quest with "Midnight Marauders". That album by Tribe was the first time I could truly remember having a life-changing, full-length album experience. The crazy thing about this album is that it exposed me to other hip-hop artists and hip-hop pioneers. That iconic album cover included everyone who was "anyone" in hip-hop at the time. Seeing those people on the front of the cover of that album forced me to do some research and dig a lot deeper into hip-hop.
All of my research exposed me to artists that I only would've discovered through looking into my favorite artists influences, such as Gangstarr, KRS-One, Big L, The Native Tongues, and Blackstar just to name a fraction of my hip-hop music library. The Internet has changed things forever. In the age of the internet content based endeavors (i.e youtube, social media, blogs, podcasts, and music), the more content you can push out, potentially the more exposure you get. This creates an environment for artists and writers to prioritize quantity over quality. With creativity, it's important to prioritize quality and never sacrifice anything for quality. In this new age, when you're just starting out new in the game you are forced to just throw out everything and hope something sticks. We, as consumers of the content, have to comb through oversaturated content to find quality content.
When it comes to the new genres such as trap, I am definitely not a hater. There is a time and a place for every artist and every genre. If you truly love hip hop we all have our own personal opinions as to what constitutes "real hip-hop". Those topics are fun for debates and conversations, but unless you are a pioneer or a staple in hip-hop these debates at the end of the day are just that, for fun and ultimately arbitrary. I definitely had my stage as a young buck trying to "stick up" for what I thought real hip-hop was, but as I get older I realized every artist and genre has its place.
That being said there is a time and a place for EVERY artist or type of music. I can definitely say that when I'm in the gym I don't want to hear conscious raps like Public Enemy or Immortal Technique and at the opposite end of the spectrum if I want to listen to some thought-provoking music I'm not going to bump Drake or Migos. On a positive note about today's music there are a few artists that I truly dig. I can honestly say that I listen to and enjoy artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Chance The Rapper, J. Cole, Schoolboy Q, and yes even Drake.
t is unfortunate when the average consumer these days listens to top-40 or whatever is crackin on Spotify or iTunes music. It is a disservice and disrespectful to hip-hop and the artists who paved the way for the artists of today when we don't dive deeper into where the music came from and who influenced these artists. Even when I listen to "real hip-hop" I make sure to research whether or not the artist and/or producer sampled another song and then I find the original song and listen. If you listen to music for surface level reasons, I respect that and I have no problems with that. However if you want to call yourself a hip-hop fan then I think you should really do your research and pay respect to pioneers and everyone else who paved way for today's artists.
At the end of the day, let's continue to dialogue about our opinions about hip-hop while being respectful because this culture is clearly not a fad and it's not going anywhere. Let's keep hip hop alive. Love. Peace. Hip-Hop. Forever.
