IS Hip Hop Taking A DIVE!??Like 90's Rock music did!
- Thread starter D$truction Band
- Start date
LeanThirteen
Illustrator
sometimes i feel the same way
yokuzin
Much Love. Peace!
I'm old enough and real enough to understand we as black folks want excuses for everything.
Two black dots......jump up three times.........
Two white dots jump up one time and see it looks cool to jump up three times. One wants to be cool with the black dots but understand his surroundings don't allow hanging with the black dots. And the black dots feel like white dots don't consider them dots at all on the black sheet of paper. So they make the white dot (who is easy to see on that black piece of paper)..feel like he don't belong there. Or maybe they see that one dot as cool....he can hang. hmmmmm............history right?
Other dot wants to be cool to the other dots by showing them his new style of jumping. 10 white dots learn it, 100 dots learn it, they go other places and now 1,000,000 learn it.
1,000 black dots still on the same black page....jumpin in different yet the same style........two black dots want acknowledgement for being the ones that started other black dots jumping three times
SHOCKED at all of these white dots jumpin in different styles from the original......
Black dots get jealous at the success of what they as a whole created on a black page not being known it comes from them......two black originators hate them all.......
Any black dot who is successful on a black page is grey to the black dots.
End of story.
We been using the history excuse for shit....for what? Because they made rules? Changed some rules? What are you black dots doing in the same way? Nothing but complaining about white and grey dots. Every time you see a grey dot on a black page you get furious because they can't see your black ass on a black page, but they can see that grey dot, though. You run to history (your hero) and it actually tells you the truth that you hide from as if it answers some kind of question....yet it never satisfy a solution after ALL OF THESE YEARS. So you have ended up being classified as such in a black page full of white, grey, purple, yellow, red dots today. They all are fascinated by the movement of those black dots on the black page. When they look closely they see movement....they like those movements...some paint their selves black to keep it a secret...hell...they think you want it that way...others want the world to experience something they would think is exciting. They don't care that it would get in the hands of other people that want the world to experience this...it's not a secret any more..they never thought of it as a secret like the ones who painted their selves black to not be visible such as the other black dots.. But why in the hell are we all still on a black page? Why are we not on the grey page that we ALL CAN SEE? No need for grey dots....feel me? We all can be seen......but will you black dots still feel some kind of way since you move different and now everyone can see so they stealing something from you? I think so.....because history tells you so..even on a white page that EVERYONE can be seen on. hmmmmmmmmmmmm...........
You checking out history and not really studying it. That's a problem.......us black dots will never find a solution checking out history.......until we study how we can MAKE HISTORY not repeat itself. We got to start with US and our mind set.
Hip hop has been on the charts for a looooooooooooooooong time. Yall buggin. Hip hop has been underground for a loooooooooooooong time. Yall buggin.
Look at this pop music sell out............
She killed hip hop a long time ago. How dare she wear African clothes and do African dances to the white people's music..........grey dot ass........
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I'm not racist. i just call it how I see it. I've disagreed with Blacks on here too when I felt they were using the race card. Public Enemy was making statements like this in Hip Hop way before some fp members found it offensive. Read an article below(before it gets deleted for being too truthful) written by a white man:
Earlier this week, in a review of a concert by a white rap-reggae duo from Boston, The New York Times’ Jon Caramanica addressed "a phenomenon that’s been happening for some time—white rappers performing for predominantly white audiences." But Aer’s recent performance at Irving Plaza took place in a slightly different atmosphere. The success of Seattle’s Macklemore & Ryan Lewis at last month’s Grammys, where they won three awards in rap categories, was "the sort of pigs-flying moment that gets prognosticators to prognosticating, and self-designated cultural protectors to fuming. Here was a pop-inclined white hip-hop act that had leapfrogged to juggernaut status in barely a year and in turn become a bellwether of racial shifts of in the genre.” Caramanica predicts there’s much more this—white rappers "performing to an almost exclusively white audience"—to come. He’s right.
To hip-hop traditionalists, this is a nightmare come true. Houston rap legend Scarface, of the pioneering gangsta rap group Geto Boys, sounded the alarm recently in comments to the website VladTV. “Hip-hop is hip-hop,” he said. “And it ain’t going anywhere, you know what I mean. The face might change in 25 years. You know, hip-hop’s gonna be white in 25 years. It’s gonna be all white kids. No more—it’s gonna be like rock n’ roll. To find a Geto Boys record in 25 years is gonna be rare. Some of you don’t even believe that shit. You better ****in’ believe it.”
The fear, as Caramanica noted, is not new. It reared its head five years ago when a blonde-haired, blue-eyed kid from the Philadelphia suburbs named Asher Roth had a top-20 hit with a rap song called “I Love College.” Ten years before that, of course, Eminem gave rap its own Elvis, selling millions upon millions of records, becoming not only the biggest rap star on the planet, but perhaps the biggest pop star of any sort.
At that time, I was working at Vibe magazine. And it was certainly a topic of conversation around the office—among white staffers (like me) and black. I edited our first feature story on Eminem, and interviewed MC Serch of the white 1980s rap duo 3rd Base about the subject. “My main concern with his record being this big,” he said, “is whether the door now opens for the most corny, bullshit-ass crackers to come through the pipeline … Only time will tell. It could go two ways: Either Em will make record companies realize that they need to support true MCs, or they will put more money behind white artists than black artists, and hip-hop will become just like rock n’ roll. That, to me, would be the equivalent of Revelation. You might as well just blow up the earth. It would be so disgustingly vile.”
Some say the end Serch predicted is nigh. In 2013, for the first time in the 55-year-history of the Billboard Hot 100, not one black artist lodged a number-one single. (Of the eleven songs that held the spot for some portion of the year, four were hip-hop, and four featured black singers or rappers in guest roles.) There’s been round, sustained clamor over Macklemore’s Grammy haul, which was all the more glaring because it came at the expense of fellow nominee Kendrick Lamar, a (frankly) far more talented artist, who is black. (Macklemore handled the situation awkwardly, too, writing Kendrick a text message that said, “I wanted you to win. You should have. It’s weird and sucks that I robbed you.” And then posting a screenshot of that text to his Instagram account, so everyone could see how magnanimous he is.) Macklemore admits that white privilege is a factor in his success. “I benefit from that privilege,” he has said. “And I think that mainstream Pop culture has accepted me on a level that they might be reluctant to, in terms of a person of color.” But that doesn’t change the facts on the ground: A new white hip-hop superstar has been anointed, one who does not live up to most rap critics’ definition of excellence. (Eminem is widely considered to be an extremely skilled rapper.) Some have even gone so far as to anoint Macklemore some sort of savior of hip-hop, a Great White Hope who will help the genre evolve into a more enlightened form. A recent Dallas Morning News headline sums up this perspective: “Macklemore shows hip-hop doesn’t need to be homophobic, violent in Dallas concert.”
Like Serch said, with so many more white people listening to rap than black, more and more white people will make it (and, it’s hard to deny that its easier to sell a white rap star to millions and millions of white consumers than it is a black one). So let's imagine that, in 25 years, most of the people making it are white, and that, like rock, it's thought of as a white form. Shouldn’t we expect black artists will be on to creating whatever next new form might challenge the status quo the way rap did, and the way rock n’ roll did before that? As rock became whiter over time, black artists forged new paths in R&B, in soul, in funk, in disco. (And many—Chuck Berry, Jimi Hendrix, Phil Lynott of Thin Lizzy, Prince, Bad Brains, Living Colour, Fishbone—stayed on and made an indelible impact in rock.)
That’s already happening in hip-hop. There’s a recent strain of rap music that has the purists up in arms just as much, if not more, than Macklemore does. Influenced by experimentalists like Kanye West and Lil Wayne and Gucci Mane, a new wave of artists from Chicago and Atlanta have been pushing rap into aesthetic spaces it has never been before. Often using Autotune to warp their voices in ways traditional rappers never could, they bleed one word into the next, blurring the line between rapping and singing. Folks like Future, Chief Keef, Z Money, Rich Homie Quan, Young Thug—these guys puts far more focus on melodic vocal delivery, and far less on word-by-word lyricism, than any rappers the genre has ever countenanced. Is the music they’re making still hip-hop? For now, I’d say so. But who knows? Maybe someone will invent a whole new word for it, and it will evolve to the point that it sounds so different from our traditional understanding of hip-hop that it will become a genre unto itself, with its own hard-line purists trying to protect its borders. By that point, maybe “hip-hop” will be left to the stodgy old white guys.
Fp's on that same crap about to ban & silence me because I'm a brother who kept it too real with this post. They want the more watered down Drake types anyway who steer away from controversial topics.
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yokuzin
Much Love. Peace!
O.K........now where are the black audience going? Who has music today to make black folks wanna spent their time and money to come see perform. Black folks messed that up with Hammer...right? Hating ass hip hop purest called him a sellout...yet none of these rappers have shit else to offer but their street creditability, their selfish lyrics, and their false life stories today. And when the next Hammer come out, he is going to be bombarded the same. Because hip hop purist are some very envious.
Two sides of the story.......I'm on nobody's side.
I like Kendrick Lemar's music, haven't really listen to Macklemore's album. So here we are telling "fans" who should've won based on some talent? So now it's some conspiracy black or white reason for it. I'm tired of hearing you rap.........learn how to rap and dance. Put on a real show. But "hip hop" seems to keep rappers from going in that direction. Because their brands are limited to street credibility as if dance is not street. We have been braind washed by rappers and now rthe confusion has spread to a generation that is scared to step outside that black page because of some nonsense research of history they they can't even get a real understand of.............WHY....because they are look for excuses. Rappers are slaves to this invisible rule made up by some guys who feel they should be leaders of hip hop....they black. They see these white rappers running free of those dumbass rules...it hurts their feelings. The don't know what to do. So they continue to be a slave to them old black dudes.
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Just Clauz
New member
Instead of pulling the race card, ask yourself this question; Who has most star appeal; Macklemore or Kendric Lamar??Now think to yourself is it about color, or making music that people want to rythm to.
yokuzin
Much Love. Peace!
Not really a race card.....just time for people to wake up. Quit making excuses and start changing things. So that way we won't make messy opinions about why Macklemore has a white audience.....of yeah...he is white and he is a rapper also. You would think he was screaming white power or something. Black artist can do the same thing if they weren't selfish, envious, jealous, ect.
Nightshade
New member
I agree with a lot of what Yokuzin is saying.
I think a big part of the equation that is being skipped over is that musicians and artists as a whole want to hit the largest paying audience they can, just so happens that by numbers it has to include a white audience. The labels know this, the artists know this even the average person on the street knows that the largest consumers of music (paid) is a white audience.
Great you have figured out who to target to get sales, now the side effect of this is that you have what has become 2 generations of people growing up on hip hop and rap music, people who never gave a second thought (for the most part) about color of skin having any bearing on their inclusion in the world of hip hop. Not one artist has come out and said "I don't want white peoples money" because they know that would be career suicide. Due to that you have just as many white artists who belong in hip hop as you do black artists, it isn't co-opting the music genre, it isn't a takeover it is simply a numbers game...and now you want to complain about it when you will turn around and tell people to learn how to play the game. Well this is what the eventual outcome of playing the game becomes, even Chuck D knew this was how it works because the largest purchasers of "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" were white males between 16 and 25 years of age, is he complaining about that? Not one bit, in fact when Prof. Griff made a statement about it he got let go from the group because the group as a whole knew that was cutting their paychecks off.
I think a big part of the equation that is being skipped over is that musicians and artists as a whole want to hit the largest paying audience they can, just so happens that by numbers it has to include a white audience. The labels know this, the artists know this even the average person on the street knows that the largest consumers of music (paid) is a white audience.
Great you have figured out who to target to get sales, now the side effect of this is that you have what has become 2 generations of people growing up on hip hop and rap music, people who never gave a second thought (for the most part) about color of skin having any bearing on their inclusion in the world of hip hop. Not one artist has come out and said "I don't want white peoples money" because they know that would be career suicide. Due to that you have just as many white artists who belong in hip hop as you do black artists, it isn't co-opting the music genre, it isn't a takeover it is simply a numbers game...and now you want to complain about it when you will turn around and tell people to learn how to play the game. Well this is what the eventual outcome of playing the game becomes, even Chuck D knew this was how it works because the largest purchasers of "It Takes A Nation Of Millions To Hold Us Back" were white males between 16 and 25 years of age, is he complaining about that? Not one bit, in fact when Prof. Griff made a statement about it he got let go from the group because the group as a whole knew that was cutting their paychecks off.
I agree. Chuck has contradicted himself at times in pursuit of that paper. How do you feel about what MC Serch(a white rapper himself) said. I am aware that it takes a unique white person to even attempt to emphatize with what Black artists experience. What makes the article even more profound for me is the fact that it was written by a older white man. I said in my previous post that the older white generation had a slightly better grasp of the politics, culture and obstacles of Black artists than this generation.
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Nightshade
New member
I agree mostly with Serch's response, Em is to a large degree the Elvis of hip hop and opened a door that can't be closed. I don't know that I see it as a bad thing because hip hop as a culture was never meant to be based on racial makeup at all, but up until that point for the most part whites, no matter how involved, were seen as guests which is against the idea the community is based on. Many of those people they were calling guests had more invested and more in common with the music they weren't supposed to connect with than those calling them guests.
In thinking about this a bit yesterday I think things are simply shifting and the next stage is being pushed but it is not yet able to be marketed to white america which is why you are seeing less and less of it charting as a whole. Those who used to chart are delivering sub-par quality so they are dropping off, Jay-z is long in the tooth at this point and so far disconnected from his audience he has lost appeal to the masses, Kanye is in a worldwide pity party for himself and people have lost respect and interest in him and his latest very disappointing delivery, widely regarded as talented and respected (not my cup of tea though) is Lil Wayne who I admit had some great stuff early on, but has since gotten lazy which I see as being mostly about "playing the game" to keep the lights on but he is very sub-par and has been for several albums now...even the critics have said so but he is in a tail spin and has only two choices, full throttle forward or a break.
Is it destroying hip hop? No not a bit, but it is taking into new and unfamiliar territory just like any evolution does. It makes people like you and I uncomfortable to see the change and the acceptance of a more white stage presence and yet when you look out into the audience of any black rap artist what is their audience comprised of? Probably a large majority are white college kids who grew up with the music and the culture as their own no matter their economic makeup.
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Hip hop is just a hustle now. It isn't about the love for the culture anymore, and that is what is killing it! Of course people want to get rich from it, but get rich from doing something you love. Now it's just about getting rich, and to hell with the culture. People follow whoever is poppin' at the time. They do what they do. They rhyme about what they rhyme about. They want beats like theirs. They wanna sound like them. They have no interest in becoming rich by adding to the culture with their own sound. I remember when you could go to a show and see the hip hop hippies, the hip hop gangstas, the hip hop playaz, the hip hop teachers, and the hip hop comedians all in same show. Now the entire show is like watching six acts performing the same song, and trying to do that one song the best. Everyone is a drug dealing, gun totting, gun busting, money stacking, bottle poppin', good green smoking, super flossing, gangsta with the fanciest whip that has f#%ked all the baddest ******* in the world. Diversity is gone out of the mainstream hip hop scene.
Xabiton
Cupcake God
Trends change with the times and the charts are reflecting that. Its rare for a style of music to remain on top for a super long time that's why pop music is constantly changing to replicate what is popular at the moment. Right now hip hop isn't popular and hasn't been all that popular in years compared to other genres of music. House and EDM are the big things right now in 5 years it will likely be something else. I wouldn't stress it too hard just keep doing you. Hip Hop isn't going anywhere but its not going to be the top of the charts like it was in 2001 either
RicochetRockNice
New member
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Hip-Hop will always re-invent itself yes the rich industry execs capitalized on it made many artist
sell out on it but every time I turn on a radio or I hear a car rolling down the block what do I hear
rap music TRAP music don't get me wrong I like Trap music but Hip-Hop music is not going
anywhere. I don't listen to the radio and for some strange reason when I do listen to the music that
I do hear on the radio it's repetitive remember when break beats were a component of Hip-Hop
now Hip-Hop is a component of what is being created these days btw I was there since the
inception of Hip-Hop I stood right next to moppy Super Ryhms Jimmy Spicer I stood right next to
Dj Flash,Dj Aj, I went to school with Sha Rock,Funky Four Plus 1 More,Crash Crew,Bambattahz
Zulu Nation,Larry Love.
I could go on and on people are sleeping right now so I'm not going to say too much but you guys
are in for some surprises as far as Hip-Hop is concerned because people are fed up with what's
become of it and I liked what "Lord Jamar" had to share on it he makes some valid points from
my personal perspective and who ever said "Do You" I believe in that. Why do we have to do what
the industry dictates we do musically in order to get in if "WE" go against this grain then I think
we can make some headway as Hip-Hop Producers and Music Producers in general.
I'm always thinking of ways to re-invent myself musically I have had to make so many transitions
due to the changes in the industry in order to stay relevant definitely have to think outside of the
box when it comes to this music especially Hip-Hop in terms of a creativity level.
Nightshade
New member
Royals is about a trend which promotes a flashy expensive lifestyle that is constantly promoted in the media in general...buy this, buy that, the more you have, the fancier the label blah blah blah ad infinitum. It is the constant bombardment of these images she is talking about in that song and how it is not even real life for 90% or better of those targeted by that music/movies/tv and advertisements as a whole. It is about trying to live your life according to other peoples best days when it is nothing but a small snapshot, an incomplete picture and people are trying to live that way as an everyday lifestyle.
Which is exactly what the current stream of rap artists are promoting.
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yokuzin
Much Love. Peace!
^^^^people can't blame rappers today for being that without blaming the studio gangstas for doing the same back then. Or the weed smokers and cokeheads promoting saying no to drugs. Or the pro black rapper....who doesn't read books and further his knowledge, but take the words of other rappers and make songs from them.
It will always be a "do whatever it takes to get on" type of industry as long as rappers have dreams (of being rich). I feel 90% will eventually swallow their pride and create the type of music that appears to get them noticed instead of the music they beg people to appreciate. The other 10% are either content with the people that appreciate them and care less about a bigger budget, or forever lost being 50 years old thinking that the world owes them a ladder to the top. Not saying a 50 year old can't make it as a rapper, saying 35 years in the game stuck in the same mindset that never worked.
And the mindset of commercialized hip hop has never changed. Rappers still want to get put on by anything that will get them what they see in the media. Fame is still the most important goal for them even though they preach the gospels of 2Pac Shakur....."I want the money fuuck the fame"..........it's really "forget the money, I'm better than those rappers in the media's eye".
One thing people fail to realize when comparing Rock then to rap now.................rock has never had the business potential as hip hop. As long as rappers have dreams, you will have producers advertising services, beatmakers selling beats, promotion and marketing companies luring them to spend money, graphic artist designing, new managers on the rise, more clothing lines being developed, Jordan reaching multi billions, more websites feeding the lust of rappers, big time rap battle companies along with the up and coming ones, dance being taught and also heavily influenced by hip hop ........I can go on and on........
But we are thinking hip hop is becoming rock because of genres that have dominated the charts for the past 30 years?
What other genre has a "bigger global market" than hip hop? Seriously asking?
It will always be a "do whatever it takes to get on" type of industry as long as rappers have dreams (of being rich). I feel 90% will eventually swallow their pride and create the type of music that appears to get them noticed instead of the music they beg people to appreciate. The other 10% are either content with the people that appreciate them and care less about a bigger budget, or forever lost being 50 years old thinking that the world owes them a ladder to the top. Not saying a 50 year old can't make it as a rapper, saying 35 years in the game stuck in the same mindset that never worked.
And the mindset of commercialized hip hop has never changed. Rappers still want to get put on by anything that will get them what they see in the media. Fame is still the most important goal for them even though they preach the gospels of 2Pac Shakur....."I want the money fuuck the fame"..........it's really "forget the money, I'm better than those rappers in the media's eye".
One thing people fail to realize when comparing Rock then to rap now.................rock has never had the business potential as hip hop. As long as rappers have dreams, you will have producers advertising services, beatmakers selling beats, promotion and marketing companies luring them to spend money, graphic artist designing, new managers on the rise, more clothing lines being developed, Jordan reaching multi billions, more websites feeding the lust of rappers, big time rap battle companies along with the up and coming ones, dance being taught and also heavily influenced by hip hop ........I can go on and on........
But we are thinking hip hop is becoming rock because of genres that have dominated the charts for the past 30 years?
What other genre has a "bigger global market" than hip hop? Seriously asking?
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