Happy Monday friends. Tha King hopes everyone had a funny and freaky Halloween weekend. As an adult Halloween becomes less about candy and costumes and more about freakiness...and costumes. This week Tha King is making a commitment not to talk about anything relationship/sex related. I know this my disappoint the nymphos that read but fret not, Tha King as some goodies in store. Starting today.....Contrary to what my Fellow Queensian(work with me) Nas may have said, Hip Hop is NOT dead, but its on life support and they're getting ready to take out that feeding tube. Hip Hop is very near and dear to Tha King's heart, I was born during the its infancy and have grown as it has, the music of the time has served as a sound track for my life. The past 5 or so years have been particularly painful to bear as Hip Hop as transformed from the ground breaking music of a rebellious generation to the mundane, repetitive nonsense that frequents the radio currently. In order to bring the music of my generation back from the brink of extinction, we must first identify the major problems plaguing it. So Tha King presents to you, The 5 major Things/ People that are killing Hip Hop.(sigh)This may take a while.
1. The Internet; The Internet has forever changed our society in ways we can't even begin to comprehend. All types of music from all over the world is at our fingertips. The way artists create, market and sell music has change to accommodate what has become the most popular medium. All is not sunshine and roses though. Hip Hop as felt the ill-affects of this transition. Every 5 seconds are new "Internet sensation" is setting the hip hop world ablaze with freestyles recorded on his web cam in the basement of his grandma's house. For every artist that hits the mainstream, there are 10 more on the net proclaiming they are better, and people are buying it. Before a rapper had to prove he was better on a real record or in a battle. Now everyone anoints Mookie Mook from Ohio the man because he was 20,000 YouTube views. Another problem with the Internet is its affect on record sales. With an artist's entire album on Lime Wire the week before it's released in stores, "Fans" are not going out to support the artist of their choice. Which lead me to number 2......
2. Cheap ass/ Ignorant ass "fans"; This pisses Tha King off for lots of reasons. Mainly because we're all guilty of it at one point or another.(Yes, you too.) The average hip hop fan is male, 18-24 years old. So why is it that 90% of total hip hop sale are by Females and teenagers ages 13-17? What are they buying? Plies(ugh! typing his name just pissed me off), Souljah Boy, Nicki Manaj and all these other douche bags who got a 90 on their rhyming words exam in the 5th grade and think they can rap. This sends a messages to the legitimate artists. Get down or lay down. The genuine lyricist has a million downloads online and his music is proclaimed hip hop genius, yet his album goes triple wood when it hits the stores. Bubble gum rapper goes platinum the 1st week. How can you call yourself a fan if you don't support the artists work?
3. Record Labels/ Execs; Tha King shutters at the thought that the people who made the decision to give Lil Mama and OJ the Juice man record deals are currently sitting in a office building making more decisions that affect the music that I am exposed to. The Person that signed off on the Plies album is making millions of dollars? Seriously? To make matters worse. When an artist with talent does come into their office. These fools want to try to give them a gimmick. MC's don't have gimmicks, jokers have gimmicks.
4. Lies; "We don't believe you, you need more people." MC's have always embellished slightly about the lives that they have lived but it get to a point where it becomes ridiculous. Even if we don't believe you at least make your portrayals believable. The only weight Rick Ross has moved is his body weight every time his fat ass walks. Tha King knows it, Rick Ross knows it and so does everyone else. If you've never killed stop talking about killing, if you've never sold drugs don't make a song about it. You don't have to talk about whatever one else is. People will accept your music if its creditable
5. New York City Ok, just hear me out for a second. We all know it started in Queensbri.....uhhhh The South Bronx. We all know BK is the home of the greatest rappers. We know all the other hard niggas come from Yonkers. But wake up! Rap exists outside New York, good rap. Yet whenever New Yorkers are presented an MC from outside of NY we turn our noses up slightly. If Hip Hop is gonna grow, we have to get off our high horse and be more accepting of Non NY Hip Hop. A message to the rest of the country; Plies(Tha King hates him with every fiber of his being, can you tell?) is not gonna cut it. Leave the Kool-Aid shit on the other side of the Hudson.
Tha King considered making this a 10 item list, I didn't talk about the Producers, the Radio stations and fans(stans) hanging of the left nut of established artists. I don't wanna be to negative though. I'm a solution orientated person. That being said, I'm still trying to come up with some solutions.
Agree, Disagree, leave anything out? Love Plies?(If you love Plies and have the balls to say it on this blog be prepared for the repercussions) Let me know people. We have to save Hip Hop!!
4. Lies; "We don't believe you, you need more people." MC's have always embellished slightly about the lives that they have lived but it get to a point where it becomes ridiculous. Even if we don't believe you at least make your portrayals believable. The only weight Rick Ross has moved is his body weight every time his fat ass walks. Tha King knows it, Rick Ross knows it and so does everyone else. If you've never killed stop talking about killing, if you've never sold drugs don't make a song about it. You don't have to talk about whatever one else is. People will accept your music if its creditable
5. New York City Ok, just hear me out for a second. We all know it started in Queensbri.....uhhhh The South Bronx. We all know BK is the home of the greatest rappers. We know all the other hard niggas come from Yonkers. But wake up! Rap exists outside New York, good rap. Yet whenever New Yorkers are presented an MC from outside of NY we turn our noses up slightly. If Hip Hop is gonna grow, we have to get off our high horse and be more accepting of Non NY Hip Hop. A message to the rest of the country; Plies(Tha King hates him with every fiber of his being, can you tell?) is not gonna cut it. Leave the Kool-Aid shit on the other side of the Hudson.
Tha King considered making this a 10 item list, I didn't talk about the Producers, the Radio stations and fans(stans) hanging of the left nut of established artists. I don't wanna be to negative though. I'm a solution orientated person. That being said, I'm still trying to come up with some solutions.
Agree, Disagree, leave anything out? Love Plies?(If you love Plies and have the balls to say it on this blog be prepared for the repercussions) Let me know people. We have to save Hip Hop!!
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Lady Iphone
ReplyDeleteIf someone would ask me what killed hiphop I'd probably say the radio stations. Radio stations don't play real hip hop. There's no substance anymore. Whats the hottest shit out right now??? "Shake ya ass, talk about sexing this girl and that one" What the fuck is that about...Wheres are the lyricist? most of the rapper talk about money they don't have anyway. R.I.P hip hop 3/9/95, yea i said it!!!
Lady Iphone
ReplyDeleteEdit: 3/9/97
You naturally left out a bunch of things from the list because 5 is an understatement when talking about killing hip hop. I can’t start to fill in them gaps because I would be typing from now to kingdom come. Lol. I used to be one of them dudes bitching and groaning about the wack songs that are being played on the radio. However, I have taken a different approach. Hip hop needs the wack and redundant songs for diversity purposes. In order for hip hop to be a complete genre in music, the wack, redundant, partying, lyrical, and entertaining songs all need to be inclusive. The part that makes me upset is that, we are getting stuck with the wack, redundant, and party songs. I think that a revolution needs to happen where we see all videos and hear all songs again. That was the real music days. The day where even if you had the 106 and Park, then the gutter hip hop fans can watch rap city. Now it’s all bubble come. Some one help! Even if Plies existed, I wouldn’t mind if I hear slaughter house follow up his song on the rotation. The radio rotation consists of 20 songs in a genre of 100,000 artists. Lol I am not saying that all 100,000 need to be heard, but a greater majority. Don’t you all agree? ¤IceO¤
ReplyDeleteI like Piles, or is it Plies... either 1 idc, first single the name of it slips my mind right now but its was catchy. Darn i wish i membered the name ..oh well. I am also angered by ppl like Soulja boys talentless self.
ReplyDeleteLady iPhone; Nice catch, while I don't agree it died in 97, we can say it got diagnosed with somethin real bad that day. iPhones suck btw. Blackberry all day.
ReplyDeleteIce0; Tell em why you mad ice! I could have wrote a book about whats wrong with Hip Hop but I had to edit it down some.I agree that the wack shit is needed, but the redundancy has got to stop. I feel you on the radio shit. Hot 97 is on all day at my job and in those 8 hours I hear about 12 songs.
Nakyta; "Shawty" good song. I like it, but it stopped there.
I agree, ppl don't show love when its necessary or credit when its due. For example Lupe is real fly and does not get enuff respect. The playful songs are cool...everything can't be the same. There are genres within the genre. If everyone wrote their paper and they were all good, how would one determine the A from the D? But instead of hearing the lyrical with lack there of, artist are forced to "dumb it down" or they stop making there "good" music all together... The balancing has too much weight on the other side and not enough support.
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Balancing beam*
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