One of my major in interest in life is always under attack, and that
is Hip-Hop/Rap. I love this style of music, and it's something that I
identify with more than any other music genre. However, my love for
Hip-Hop causes me much pain, as a lover of Hip-Hop has to also be a
defender of it. There's three levels of Hip-Hop, and two of them give
off the negative image that is shoved in the face of rap lovers the
world over, while the third level gets widely ignored, even though it's
the best form of rap and the truest to it's roots.
The first, and worst form of Hip-Hop would be the "ignant
rap". There is no skill involved at all, most of the time the "artist"
can barely rap. This level of rap is purely beat driven and the only
skill involved is that of the producer. A prime example of this would
be Lil Jon. He can't rap, he just screams. Every other word in the
song is an expletive, and there is no message at all beyond "You can
neva eva, eva eva, eva eve, eva eva eva eva, get on my level ho". I
personally believe that this is the beginning of the end of rap. The
sad thing is...the beats are so insanely good that people end up buying
it anyway, even if they dislike the lack of a message. I must admit
that I own a Lil Jon CD since he was also smart enough to get some
decent rappers to rap over some of his hottest beats and give the album
a handful of good songs. It's something that's good to get you hyper
in an instant. However, the negative image is so strong that Hip-Hop
haters love to throw it in your face and never let it go. This is the
main source of rap's bad name.
The second level is commercial rap. This is the "Money, cars, hoes"
rap that has saturated the market. Here, there are many people with
talent, but no message at all besides how drunk they get in the club
and how many girls they can sleep with. This is also more beat driven,
but not as much as "Ignant rap" is. The way that some of the
commercial rappers can put together words is amazing. This is more
driven by the flow that the artist has. If it's good, they will be
successful, if not, they will fail. The main problem with this rap is
that it has no message to it, so to people who dislike the genre, it's
not music.
The last, but most certainly not least, level is what I call "real
rap". This is where the *real* talent is. This is where the street
poets reside. All of these artist have a message that they are trying
to get across to the listener, or an image that they are trying to
portray. You can actually sit down with the lyrics of their songs and
analyze them like any other poem and find a deeper meaning to the
words. Some songs explain the struggles of street life while others
are telling the listeners to better themselves so they can have a
better life. When I was younger, I didn't understand these rappers at
all, so I didn't listen to them. When I got older and realized what
they were saying, I grew a great appreciation for these artist. At
first, I was focusing on the flow that they had, and it was much better
than a lot of the commercial rappers that are out. After listening on
the surface a few times, paying attention to the beat and their flow, I
started to listen to the words. Songs like Tupac's "Me and My
Girlfriend" made me say "Wow! He's not talking at all about what I
thought he was!" "Brenda's Got a Baby" was another Tupac song that was
misunderstood at first, even in his own neighborhood. Because of his
talent, he was able to make the song seem so personal that people
thought that he was talking about one person, but he was talking about
all the black girls across the country. Songs like "Poppa Was A
Player" by Nas may seem on the surface like just a story about a
cheating father, but when you listen, he's actually talking about how
fathers need to take care of their children and not just be a "baby
daddy" or just "the man that impregnated mom". In the song, he talks
about how no matter how many problems there may have been, his father
always stayed and that was the best lesson he got...how to be a man.
You have Old School rappers like Slick Rick who made their career on
telling stories. "Children's Story" by Slick Rick is more than just a
play on a bedtime story, it's a life lesson. The moral of the story is
to stay out of trouble because once you get into trouble, it builds
upon itself when you try to get out of it. There's Old School gangsta
rap that had a strong message, but people chose to ignore it. NWA
released the song "Fuck the Police" and the FBI, Congress, and local
law agencies denounced them publicly, and in letters written to the
group. They were trying to tell people that things were happening in
the hood, and that bad things would happen in LA if they didn't fix
it. Instead, they were written off as ignorant, inflammatory,
misinformed, vulgar rappers. Then the Rodney King beating happened and
after the verdict in the trial...LA exploded in riots. People finally
saw what NWA was saying this whole time, they weren't so wrong after
all.
The problem with real rap is that most of it is Old School, so it
doesn't get play time on the radio, on on music videos. People are not
exposed to the real rap because of that, and they are missing out on
something special. There are still good rappers, but people choose to
listen only to their singles, which may be more commercial than the
rest of the album. Once you get into the album, where the artist puts
their heart and soul into it, there is something beautiful in the
making.
In the end, I'm just a lover of music. I'll listen to anything as
long as it's good, but Hip-Hop is my focus. Chris Rock summed it up
best in one of his stand up shows, "Love rap, hate defending it". It's
something that is tiring, but almost like a duty. If you love Hip-Hop,
it just comes with the territory.
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