Some Real Talk from Bun B's dubcnn interview coming soon...

[Nima - Dubcnn.com]

full interview will be dropping early next week, but i wanted to let ya'll peep out a little clip from it:


dubcnn.com: Would you say that Hip-Hop is less oiginal today than it was when you first entered the game?

Bun B: I think the problem is that you don't have to work as hard. The early days, if you wanted to get good rap music, you couldn't download songs, you had to litteraly get out of the house, go to different records stores, maybe go to another town or something, to find these records. We had more of a search, so we kind of appreciated the music more. Nowadays, the technology is so advanced that you don't have to make any effort to find a song, so you kind of don't respect a song.

That kind of goes both ways for the listener as well as the artist. Yeah there's people out there that really love music, don't get me wrong, but there are some people that feel like music is just out there and when they want it they just type it in and get it! The process of getting music has gotten a lot easier, the process is getting music is getting a lot easier too, so the people making it don't respect it as much. It's like, the more advanced technology gets, the less advanced humans get, you know?


dubcnn.com: That's some real talk man... That's why record sales are so low!

Bun B: Yeah, cause technology does everything for you! If you get a Mac computer, it comes with Garage Band, so the initial idea that they put in your head is that if you want, you can make a record too! Anybody can make a record! So if everybody feels that they can make a record, what's the point of them feeling like they have to buy your record? You know? I'm not knocking people doing their thing or whatever, I don't knock nobody's hustle, all it means is that we as artists gotta try harder to put more into the music, to let people know that yeah, anybody can make A rap song, but not everybody can make good rap songs. Anybody can make A rap album, but not anybody can make a GOOD rap album.

It's up to us as artists to set the standard higher, set the stakes higher, so it's not so simple for somebody to just put an album out and be considered great! People give a lot of slack to artists that they consider "one hit wonders". But we've always had one hit wonders in the worlds, in all forms of music! So I'm not concerned about that, I don't feel like that's killing music at all. We've always had dance music in Hip-Hop, we've always had light hearted moments, but it's up to the artists making music, instead of taking the easy route and making one of the records that may make it to the top easily, to make real music and give people something to think about when you rap. Not something that they can play and forget about as soon as it goes off.

[T-Dogg]

Chuuch.

[jeromechickenbone]

Fuckin sweet Nima.  Can't wait to read the rest of that.

And that's why Bun gets so much respect.  He's obviously an intelligent dude and he's a real musician.  His flow is tighter than ever, he hasn't softened his tone, he hasn't switched up his lyrical content, he doesn't subscribe to what all these other idiots think the rules are for making music, etc, etc.  He's a true leader and everybody else in Hip Hop needs to follow his example.

And all this while UGK dropping the best single yet this year. 

[XaNdEr]

Real talk from Jrome, i already posted it in hte westcoast section but dude can rip whole songs apart by just flowing, doesn't even matter what he raps about. 

And he's real down to earth judging from the interview, like someone else said no "half ass talk" and "you know what i'm saying" just straight answers to questions.

THat's something i gotta give QUik and AMG credits for too, in recent interviews they been answering a lot of stuff and talked some good things.

[Elevz]

What...? Did he say the listeners don't appreciate good music anymore, and that's what's (for the most part) causing a lack of originality in hip-hop?

If that were true, why does he think there's still some albums being anticipated like crazy? I'm talking OB4CL2, Detox, Finding Forever, Graduated - that sort of stuff. If people didn't care, they wouldn't be getting hyped for future albums with classic potential.

Smells like a sorry excuse from Bun B for being part of the current flow of hip-hop if you ask me.

[Vegasmac25]

Bun-B is one of the cats i truley respect.Cannot wait for this interview.

[XaNdEr]

What...? Did he say the listeners don't appreciate good music anymore, and that's what's (for the most part) causing a lack of originality in hip-hop?

If that were true, why does he think there's still some albums being anticipated like crazy? I'm talking OB4CL2, Detox, Finding Forever, Graduated - that sort of stuff. If people didn't care, they wouldn't be getting hyped for future albums with classic potential.

Smells like a sorry excuse from Bun B for being part of the current flow of hip-hop if you ask me.

OB4CL2 is an album from a washed up rapper, i'm really not lookin forward to it, i hope Raekwon comes correct though, he was mad lyrical on OB4CL. I'm not sure Dre's beats are still that good plus i dunno if they mix well with Raekwon's style of rapping.

Brings me to Detox, i'm not impressed with Dre's latest beats, not bad but nothing really amazing you know. Detox isn't even sure to come out and if it does who knows it's a flop (in a musical way) so i'm not really expecting anything anymore.

Graduated....Kanye West, ok he might be ok but imo his first 2 albums weren't really that good either. Not as good as many people said they were. I'm not really looking forward to it.


Ah well i guess you didn't got the point he was trying to get across. Let me explain:

He said it has become so easy to get music, for free. With a few simple clicks you have what you want nowadays. So nobody really is involved in the buying-process of music anymore, at least a lot less then used to, so it is free, easy to get and not really a special thing anymore, so people will sooner say "fuck this record im gonna check the next one".

I remember i had a discman and i didn't got much money and bought 1 cd every 2 or 3 months as a kid, and i listened to that cd for some months, really enjoying it. Nowadays when i don't like an album 100% i just go on and hear some other album, i can get everything i want with no effort at all.

That's what he means, people are too spoiled in a way so they don't really appreciate music anymore.

Of course the blade cuts at 2 sides, since many aritsts don't really put any effort into records anymore, just put a load of (potential) radiofriendly singles and use the same recycled schemes, rhymes, etc. What we hear is nothing new. So i think it's partly the rapper's/producer's fault as well (and the labels of course).

[Elevz]

Ah well i guess you didn't got the point he was trying to get across.

Actually I did, but I just countered his statement by saying if that were true, nobody would be anticipating new albums anymore, simply because they wouldn't care, and we know that's not the case. OB4CL2, Detox and Graduated are just some examples of widely anticipated hip-hop albums, showing that people really do care.

As for the easiness of getting in touch with new music.. Of course, as a young kid we all had a hard time getting ourselves supplied, and as a result we had to deal with a lot less music (perhaps a couple albums a year) and listen to it a lot more, and naturally you'll come to appreciate it a lot more. But what does that tell you about the quality of music? Little or nothing, because you would simply swallow it all up.

So now that the bulk of music has become really accessible, does that mean the artists should go about crying that their masterpieces aren't recognised as such anymore? Nah. We still know good hip-hop when we hear it, and if that's the case a good album will be a success, one way or the other. To say that people aren't conditioned to enjoy music anymore, that's a rather debatable statement. We don't swallow it up as easily as we used to anymore (perhaps we raised the bar of our standards?), but I can see myself listening to Finding Forever for another two years if it comes out dope, and it'll be a special album regardless because I've been anticipating it so badly. Music should not be disposable and the game is still show and prove, but there's hardly anybody proving anymore. So much for Bun B's excuses as for why shit doesn't sell...

[XaNdEr]

The point is the market is oversaturated and with all the album out and even more coming out every month there's more and more albums in total. You can't discover the wheel everytime, so there will come a time when everything you hear is recycled, twisted old material, and that's what's happenin right now.

We don't hear much new shit we haven't heard already. I feel what you're saying but the truth is the market has been flooded with albums/mixtapes, music in general, so it means a lot less classics, since it is really hard to do something really new or fresh you know.

Like i said partly the consumer is to blame, but even more the industry itself who was really trying to let things stay the same and not put any effort by dropping the "success-formulas" and invest in something original and creative.