It's May 05, 2024, 06:41:56 AM
I just think Puffy killed by making hip hop totally MainStream.
What I believe is that artists today dont have anything new to bring to the table. Rappers are "formula" oriented. For example I hear artists promote their album they say "Its gonna have some club songs, some of that gangsta shit, some of that r&b shit, etc." New artists arent trying to outdo the past generation like the Ice Cubes, DOC's, Dre's, Snoop Dogg's, Nas, Rakim's, WuTang, Scarface, GangStarr, Eminem, you get the picture. All those artists plus others I cant think of at the moment brought something new to the rap game to keep it fresh. They all had their own style and everyhting. Now everybody has a white tee with a hat of every fucking ugly color with air forces or some shit yo get what Im saying? Everybody raps the same, sounds the same, dresses the same, and most of all they get in the rap game to make money, not great timeless music. I would like to know if you guys agree with me, even if you dont or have something bad to say just say it because I wanna know what everyone thinks about this!!
The problem with trying to blame any specific artist, record label, coast or whatever is that it's simply not possible. There are many, MANY artists who have been responsible for putting hip-hop in the state it's in, from all areas of the U.S. from the East to the West to the MidWest to the Dirty South. Even artists who created great albums that are classics can be blamed for this decline because they influenced other, lesser artists who exploited what they did and cheapened the genre. Don't believe me? Consider this:-Public Enemy's "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" proved that the best-selling type of hip-hop was the type that generated a backlash from cultural conservatives - hence proving that controversy sells.-N.W.A. exploited the "controversy sells" rule on "Straight Outta Compton" opened the door for MCs throughout hip-hop to use profanity (including the word "nigga") and talk about violence, sex, and drugs on record and get away with it. Ice-T, 2 Live Crew, and the Geto Boys did the same thing, albeit to a lesser extent.-Dre's "The Chronic" was responsible for making all of what N.W.A. pioneered more accessible to the mainstream, hence making more rappers want to become "gangsta" rappers to get in where the dollars was at, and thus allowing negativity to dominate hip-hop. Albums like Snoop's "Doggystyle" also helped spread the G-Funk style of "The Chronic", which was a commercialized, party-oriented sub-genre of gangsta rap that removed all of the political sentiments of cats like Ice Cube.-Albums like Biggie's "Ready To Die", Nas' "Illmatic", Mobb Deep's "The Infamous", and the Wu's "Enter The 36 Chambers" made gangsta rap dominant on the East Coast as well as the West, dethroning the last of the Native Tongues/jazz-rappers like A Tribe Called Quest and the political rappers like Public Enemy and X-Clan. The East Coast had originally been resistant to the gangsta movement, but now it had succumbed to it as well.-Shit, you could even argue that Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Linx" began the obsession of hip-hop with capitalist tendencies and excessive materialism of the "bling bling" variety. It was the first album in which the whole image of the mafioso-type gangsta rapper was practiced - you know, the kinda flossin' nigga who sips Cristal, drives a Benz, and lives like Donald Trump or Bill Gates. After this album came out, many other East Coast rappers (like Biggie, Nas, and Mobb Deep) transitioned to the mafioso-type image, which Puffy, Mase, and Jay-Z exploited better than anyone else.So you see, trying to point fingers never works. I mean, think about all the rappers you hate today (50 Cent, Ja Rule, Young Jeezy, whoever) and ask yourself, "Who were these cats' influences?" We all know Ja Rule idolizes 2Pac like a God. 50 has said that B.I.G., Nas, Jay-Z, Big L, and especially Mobb Deep (who he's now signed) were his biggest inspirations. And I'm pretty sure I've heard Jeezy say he listened to Geto Boys, UGK, and 8Ball & MJG when he was growing up. So what does that show? Quite simply, that these other cats whom it's hearsay to talk about in a negative connotation played their part by inspiring future generations of artists that we believe suck.Quote from: Addicted To Beef on June 20, 2006, 11:07:31 AMhip hop was good in the 80s & 90s. it wasn't untill the 00's when the south started coming up that hip hop died. they destroyed and its been garbage since. Nope...not even close, son.
hip hop was good in the 80s & 90s. it wasn't untill the 00's when the south started coming up that hip hop died. they destroyed and its been garbage since.
You're correct. What's amazing about all of that was that the negative aspects of what these guys did was what was emulated, not the positive. Did an album like the Chronic make gangsta rap commercial and accessible? Of course it did, but what about the concious elements of it? Songs like "When the Niggas Too Over", "Lil Ghetto Boy", songs like those. That wasn't emulated, just the gratuitiousness of it (Rat a tat tat, Bitches Ain't Shit) was emulated. Cats didn't emulate Nas's eloquent poetic wordplay and impressive skills, they emulated his wannabe Colombian Drug Lord Crystal sippin gangsta persona.Just look at 2pac for example. A lot of rap cats want to be Pac, but they want to be the gangnsta ignorant thug Pac, not the intellectual poetic Pac that loved his people.Although I do agree with what you said, it's deeper than that. It's the death of conciousness in the music that killed hip hop.
I like i said before the "real" hip-hop artists need to find ways to make themselves better, don't get mad at the competition, there jus tryin to make a dolla too.
Quote from: Juronimo on June 20, 2006, 08:11:16 PMYou're correct. What's amazing about all of that was that the negative aspects of what these guys did was what was emulated, not the positive. Did an album like the Chronic make gangsta rap commercial and accessible? Of course it did, but what about the concious elements of it? Songs like "When the Niggas Too Over", "Lil Ghetto Boy", songs like those. That wasn't emulated, just the gratuitiousness of it (Rat a tat tat, Bitches Ain't Shit) was emulated. Cats didn't emulate Nas's eloquent poetic wordplay and impressive skills, they emulated his wannabe Colombian Drug Lord Crystal sippin gangsta persona.Just look at 2pac for example. A lot of rap cats want to be Pac, but they want to be the gangnsta ignorant thug Pac, not the intellectual poetic Pac that loved his people.Although I do agree with what you said, it's deeper than that. It's the death of conciousness in the music that killed hip hop.Exactly. Many of these record labels realized that it wasn't the "conscious" elements of albums like "Death Certificate" or "The Chronic" that were making them popular; it was the references to bitches, guns, drive-bys, hustlin', blunts, and all that shit. So cats started trying to put that stuff on their records, and labels started encouraging it to make sure rappers were producing music with those elements. So basically, because the "conscious" elements of gangsta/hardcore rap were irrelevent to their popularity, it was only a matter of time before they fell out of style.I would also like to point out (and this is directed at almost everyone on DubCC) that West Coast fans are pretty much the last group of people who should be pointing fingers and blaming rappers in the South or wherever else for ruining hip-hop. Pretty much everyone here listens to rappers that are just as thuggish, unintelligent, and one-dimensional as the "trap stars" and "crunk" rappers coming from the South right now. A perfect example is DJ Quik - how many people on this forum are Quik fans? A lot, right? Now, I ain't hating on Quik, cause I love his production style and his vocal tone, but the fact is, he ain't no Chuck D or KRS-One - his music is party music intended for the clubs, just like all of the Southern crunk that gets so much hate on here. Shit, he's even worked with many of the Southern rappers who are putting out that kinda music - like Chingy, T.I., and Ludacris. But people on here give Quik a free pass, and you know they would even if Quik were a Top 10 seller with his songs playing on urban radio like 50 or Lil Jon all day long.Quote from: Native_Joe99 on June 20, 2006, 08:16:03 PMI like i said before the "real" hip-hop artists need to find ways to make themselves better, don't get mad at the competition, there jus tryin to make a dolla too.And that is yet another problem with hip-hop these days - everybody agrees that there's something wrong with it, but nobody takes responsibility for it. And they're quick to absolve their favorite artists of any blame, which is equally dumb.If you're really so mad about Dem Franchise Boyz going Gold, then go out and buy Little Brother's album. And if you're ashamed at all the digital downloads of "Laffy Taffy", get on your own iTunes subscription and pay for a download of the latest Talib Kweli single. If y'all really want hip-hop to change, then show the labels what you really want.
Just look at 2pac for example. A lot of rap cats want to be Pac, but they want to be the gangsta ignorant thug Pac, not the intellectual poetic Pac that loved his people.Although I do agree with what you said, it's deeper than that. It's the death of conciousness in the music that killed hip hop.
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