JustAFan

I've been thinking a lot of Hip-Hop lately, the evolution of the genre itself and how I would view Hip-Hop today. I think there has been a lot of discussions on what Hip-Hop is and the music that is called rap has evolved around this particular discours. 'Discours' is probably not the best word though, because the back-and-forths have been so diffuse and chaotic that it produced fundamental misunderstandings in my view. Whenever two or more parties cannot communicate anymore, schisms or at least separation follows.

So I guess my overall impression is that there are a lot of different currents in the genre which embody the differences in overall understanding of the genre itself. I could lay out a basic chronology of events from my amateuristic perspective in order to give some concrete understanding of how Hip-Hop has evolved in my view. This chronology would reflect different understandings of what Hip-Hop is in different periods of time. And that would be the following, roughly:

Before 1985: Hip-Hop was viewed to be mostly about partying, entertaining.
After 1985: Lyricism became more important
After 1992/3: Gangster rap became the face of Hip-Hop and became integrated with the trend of lyricism in the previous Golden Age.
After 1997: Gangsta Rap became commercialised insofar that the two (commercial rap and gangster rap) became indistinguishable. The underground began to rebel against this type of definition of Hip-Hop by stressing originality in rap.
After 2003/4: More types of subgenres merged with commercial Hip-Hop by which commercial Hip-Hop was given a broader definition..so broad in fact, that Hip-Hop in the mainstream became too diffuse to define concretely.

I feel like underground music today has become so 'original' that defining Hip-Hop became harder and harder for underground mc's while the mainstream has corrupted the core of Hip-Hop by merging it with commercial music altogether. The result is one place, mainstream, where Hip-Hop counts for nothing, and the other, underground, where Hip-Hop counts for everything. I don't know if anyone knows the writing of Baruch the Spinoza, but he said God was everywhere and in every object and he was accused of being an atheist. So if Hip-Hop is also everything, it may as well be nothing as well.

I'd like to call today's state of Hip-Hop almost a coma, or syndrome of the death of two particular famous mc's, which are of course Biggie and Tupac. While the mainstream has tried, and failed miserably, to reincarnate the music of those two, the underground has mostly denied the importance of its existence while confirming it by denying it so firmly. The Golden Age, that is something to strive for. Or was it All Eyes On Me? Or maybe Ready to Die? Now that we know that none of those things are going to happen, Hip-Hop is like a headless chicken where underground claims to be the head without a sense of direction and where mainstream is the body without a sense of meaning.

Is the state good or bad? In the end it is about the music of course, but I feel like underground, which I like to call the core of Hip-Hop, has got to come together to agree on a true meaning for Hip-Hop...based not on the past (the Golden Age, for example), but the future. Maybe that will give more purpose also to mainstream Hip-Hop. And the search for this new definition shouldn't rest on the shoulders of veteran mc's such as Nas (who only had a negative message anyway), but on the new generation and not get too hung up on the past.

That are my views--which I thought out elaborately of course--on Hip-Hop. Comment as far as you have had the courage to give up your precious time for my great opinion.

KING BHOB

OMG FUCK READING ALL THAT
























[sorry.]

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Shyne

seriously good shit Jaffy, im on this tiny little laptop right now but first thing in the morning i'll type up more relavent to the subject.

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TeGo

good shit..

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Grandmaster G

for some reason, i want to say 50 cent changed hip-hop in '03......when he came out, that was when carbon copies of him and a 'stereotypical rapper' came about.... 'i got shot 20 times, sign me....im a street thug' etc......i do agree with all your other years....i mean 1996 was the start of a new era of mafioso which shifted to 97 and 99, where no limit, cash money and all the other gangsta labels and music were able to spawn the anthems, chants, etc...


but this whole talk is nonsense, cause underground has been on since the early beginnings.....u practically had peeps saying 'fuck mainstream/radio.....i knock underground'...peeps in the early 90's was sayin 'imma be UG forever'


i think the state of hip hop is really undecided.....u got many of the new baby boomer generation that is coming up and being more affiliated with BET (in today's era, rap has finally reached its highest point being able to be at the top of the billboard charts..if you look back in the 90s, u had some, but not like seeing one rap song at #1 every week....having a #1 single on top 100 was a rarity in the past)....these baby boomer generation are still trying to identify what hip-hop is; back then you need to know peeps to get a record deal, now you got myspace and the internet to promote u......and soulja boi in the same remnants of illegal, kris kross, am dre, 2 low, etc are appealing based on their age and they know what their audience wants......u got mc's like lupe, kid cudi, asher roth see hip-hop as somehting not ghetto, but expressionism...


thats why u see all these type of genres emerging.....everyone today has their own interpretation of hwat hip-hop is........but hip-hop is ghetto music, you just cannot bring hip-hop to a regular audience even though most of the listeners (mostly suburban folks) can acquaint to it......hip-hop is from the ghetto....IT IS WHAT IT IS

SPDemon420

I agree with JustAFan in some of his points, but Grandmaster G pretty much nailed everything I had to say.

Real talk man, my opinion on it is pretty much exactly the same.

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Precinct Phantom

I think the state of hip hop is getting better, but for the most part it's still pretty rubbish! We've got a load of MCs coming thru in 09 that seem to be a breath of fresh air, like Asher Roth, Charles Hamilton, Wale & Kid Cudi, but i don't really see anything special yet! I see some guys that might be able to hold it down for a couple of years, but we need another legend to come into the game, that's when itll start rising! When did we have someone that looks like they'll leave a legacy like Dre or Snoop or Pac that actually deserves it???? Theres people that deserve it, but the industrys so retarded that they won't endorse or put out the right type of music! You've got people like Zion I and Black Milk that put out quality track after quality track, and albums that shit on most other peoples tbh! Every track has something about it because they're not so generic! If you look in the right places you can find that hip hop is breathing, but it seems to still be being assisted with some breathing apparatus!
I glimpsed someone said suttin about 50! I think he changed the way we think about hip hop, he came out of a buzz created purely from mixtapes and the street, and since he did that everyone else does that! But Gangsta rap has got so boring! I was listening to that Messy Marv Draped up n chipped out 2 album 2day, and the gangsta rap on there is so much better than the g unit stuff! Its got that element of realness in it!
I guess what i'm tryna say is that theres people in the game that make it healthy and all, but they don';t get the shine or the promo they deserve and are treated as throwaway artists, when they're usually more talented and have a better work ethic than the 50's or the Kanye's. Messy Marv put out 20 albums in 14 years, that deserves more recognition than he's got! I'd much prefer to listen to The Tronic than Tha Carter 3, but if you go up to 100 mainstream music fans, they won't agree, whereas if we had a situation where hip hop was in a GREAT state then people would appreciate the real hip hop more than the auto tune bullshit!

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Threyev

Based on what I like, I think commercially everything is going mainstream. Everything is a party record, like you had in your chronology for the early 80's. So the mainstream will--hopefully--go back to the lyricists, where a lot of the underground cats today will be showing up on MTV. Can hardly imagine that.

As far as mainstream, I think it peaked in the late nineties. I think old Eminem is dope, but his bringing the music to a lot of suburban households changed the whole market up. Statistically speaking, whites have more money than blacks, so what the white people want is what media will produce, since they're buying the ringtones and such. And, right now, every fourteen year-old girl wants Justin Timberlake on the hook, so that's where we're at over there. Hopefully I'll turn on TRL someday and see Sage Francis, but for now I gotta wait.

Shyne

first thing I think we really need to do is look at the word "hip hop" and what it really means to us, is hip hop simply describing the music or is it the overall lifestyle? Hip Hop as a culture is stronger then its ever been, to the point that its started effecting other musical cultures, now you see even rock artist using hip hop slang and dressing in a more hip hop fashion (although the irony of this is that hip hop seems to stylistically moving more in a rock direction), hip hop has officially entered the publics mind and in doing so had earned its spot in history, its gotten so big that it can no longer be ignore.

as for the music, mainstream music has mostly been bad from the beginning, I know a lot of cats like to glamorize the old days in the 90's when you had albums like doggystyle and shit out. but music on the radio was just as bad, thing is if you're only focused on the good cuts on the radio then of course its going to seem so much more better, hell I remember when 50 first came out and every song that was played on the radio was ass, but these days I find myself looking back and remembering the good songs that got played and thinking fondly of them and just like that the bad songs are all erased from memory. if you listened to hip hop in the 90's im sure you'll remember just as much garbage being pushed as there is today, it wasnt all Wu-Tang and Smif N Wessun getting play lol.

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Threyev

True. But those dope cats were getting a little airplay. How come I never hear Can Ox??

JustAFan

Good point. I remember De La's phrase saying 'it might blow up, but it won't go pop!'. There has been this type of consciousness about the dichotomy between mainstream and underground for a long time. I still say that the two have grown further apart. Wu's 36 Chambers was released as an underground CD on the streets of NY, but it became mainstream because it was just that good. Today, Wu-Tang seems like it has gone underground again. I think something like that testifies to how mainstream has gone further downhill.

Disagree! In fact, I would say it is more fair to say gangsta rap killed Hip-Hop, accidentally.. N.W.A made gangsta rap popular and although N.W.A was dope, it created the incentive to be gangster without any requirements of being lyrical. Anyone who would act like a gangster could infiltrate the mainstream. After 1997 this had gone out of control and it had opened the path for other weak rappers without lyrical talent to make it to the mainstream as well.

Hip-Hop itself is maybe from the ghetto, started by urban groups, but it doesn't mean you have to relate to Mobb Deep in order to be a proper hiphop fan.

Lol, that's so true, people are simply unaware of how dope Hiphop really can be. As long as Lil' Wayne rappers monopolize the charts, ignorance on quality hiphop is maintained.

I don't think that makes a lot of difference. Are whites major fans of crunk? Do rappers like Jay or DMX only have white fans? I think the situation is more complex than that.

True, I think it's important to define Hiphop, so that we have something to hold on to. It's delusional in my view to still long for the days of Rakim, Kool G Rap and LL. It's just not going to happen. In my view. HipHop has to be lyrical and/or intelligent. Original, yet on message. Rebellious, yet realistic. It has to be diverse, but consistent.

And the most important is that it has to be real. Music is an art and art is a way to express emotions. To make the music believable it has to be real. This may mean violent and angry, but it may also mean quiet and accomodating..as long as it's not staged and as long as it's not conformist.

I'm unsure about that actually! There has been a lot of doubts about HipHop and where it has been going. Yet there is also a lot of confusion what hiphop is in general. I spoke to a guy a while back who is also a hiphop fan and he genuinely believed that R&B was basically the same as Hiphop. To him, Rihanna and Beyonce are Hiphop and KRS-one is simply a hypocrite and bitter, because he isn't earning any money anymore. When I hear that I'm shocked, but I know where he gets his information.

If I go the counter when I'm on holiday and ask for a coke, I could also get a pepsi, because it is perceived as generally the same. The same happens when I'm in a club and ask for HipHop. I may as well get Justin Timberlake or Nelly Furtado! (why the pepsi/coke metaphor? lack of inspiration, ok?! )

Yeah, I get your point, but if you make up the balance I would rather listen to 90's music than the music that is being put out now. There are way more albums I listen to every year today, but then 2/3rds is OK and only 1/6th is really good, never mind trying to guess how small the number of classics. In the 90's, however, there are at least 10 albums every year that are still worth listening to now and still worth listening to in 10 years from now. I feel like today's music has gone so watery, it is pretty dope and especially original, but whether it has any lasting value is doubtful. Plus, weren't there many more dope rappers in the mainstream back then? Today's mainstream is seriously a pit of death for talent.

Grandmaster G

but hip-hop is ghetto music, you just cannot bring hip-hop to a regular audience even though most of the listeners (mostly suburban folks) can acquaint to it......hip-hop is from the ghetto....IT IS WHAT IT IS


when i made my post, i did it too fast that i wanted to get my thought out quicker and didnt really give a coherent and organized response.....what i meant from my post above is that hip-hop is listened to most people, but the fact of the matter is that hip-hop cant be brought to 'regular audiences' (you can say mainstream audiences) cause the music is always a target (seems more target than actual acclaim) (i.e. RAP=Retards in Poetry)...hip-hop is not well respected like the other genres such as rock


and when you said that one doesnt have to relate to mobb deep to be a proper fan, i dont think it can ever be shown true because for all we know mobb deep could just be fake thugs.....so for one to relate to a certain artist is always too vague and difficult



and i could see why u would propose that gangsta rap could have killed hip-hop, but i just think also that the mentality switched...even though money has always been in peeps' mind (in '87 such as paid in full).....problem back then was for high lyricists like rakim...those dudes were never a fuckin millionaire or one of the top entertainer earner for that matter...peeps just focused on trying to be hip-hop based on the fact that hip-hop was only about 10+ years at the time and to be CONSIDERED DOPE AND HIP-HOP, YOU HAD TO SOUND HIP-HOP.......but for the most part, peeps also had their mind on the money



.but when peeps actually saw the potential for money to be made (i.e. MASTER P, JAY-Z, DRE...) this new thinking mentality shifted most rappers to do the unexpected.....it lead to labels signing any rapper that can put out a good single or buzz.....leading to the current state of hip-hop

JustAFan

I understand what you're saying. Values have changed. I remember listening to Saul Williams explaining on the radio that he thought today's rappers are all republicans. Even though Hip-Hop in itself is pretty left-wing, the glorification of materialism, consumerism and the success with which such rappers have integrated themselves into society without questioning or criticizing its foundations or political philosophies shows a whole different approach and indeed a whole different set of values.

ImmortalTechnique

I'd say hip hop is super broad, and can't really be clearly defined because someone can come and do something new and make it fit.

Its kind of like talking about poetry. Some people think it has to rhyme, some people think it has to have some kind of syllable structure, some people think it has to have a certain rhyme scheme and number of lines, etc.

but someone can come along and write some shit with no punctuation or spaces and call it poetry, and it is.

hip hop pretty much just requires rhyme and a beat, and anything beyond that is how it gets broken down into subgenres. someone can come along doing something totally different, and it can be hip hop. it might not be what you like, or what you are used to, but hip hop is an art form, not a genre. it isn't quite music, it isn't quite poetry performance, its an entire art form that can be expressed in a number of different ways

JustAFan

This is what the Gawd, Rakim himself, said on the state of Hip-Hop recently (I just came across this by accident btw):



The relevance of what he said and this thread was too obvious to ignore.

Nokster

Ya'll niggaz could publish a book with all these posts.

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KING BHOB

lmfaoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

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Grandmaster G

propz king [b]HO*/b]


edit: replace * with [

KING BHOB

tell em why you mad son
t-tell them niggas why you mad son

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Grandmaster G

cause i was called out.....CAUSE I WAS CALLED OUT!! denver >>>> D-TOWN

Smithilberry

shit, interesting thread... some cool points were made...

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