Salutations world! I wanted to have a meaningful entry this time around with the new site. For this entry, I wanted to focus on hip hop artists of the present and the near future.
As a ’semi-fan’ of today’s hip hop music, I feel rappers should just be real with themselves from the beginning of their career until that last album no longer reaches the heights of their prior work. The gangsta rap of today is overly saturated with the same old crap of dopeboy dreams and champagne wishes when most cats are sleeping in their mom’s house in their tiny bedrooms or living the regular average joe life. I don’t think there is anything wrong with living a regular life with exciting and unique experiences but just be real with yourself.
Rick Ross’ battle with 50Cent is a prime example of how not owning up to the realities of life can be very embarrassing and damaging to one’s career. I heard Rick Ross’ most recent album ‘Deeper Than Rap’ and I found it to be a great album from a production standpoint I give Ross half credit. I’ve held off on giving him full credit because he has failed to truly admit to his past and his true lifestyle. Today’s fan is not as naive as they were in the 90s. Fans do understand that a rappers lifestyle can be as normal as anyone else and might not be as lavish as they depict in their lyrics. I feel a rapper who can’t own up to his/her true lifestyle is not comfortable with themselves.
Last week, I stumbled upon Malice’s (of the Clipse) Vlog and it touched on an area that I feel that this generation’s hip hop act lacks; honesty and reality. Malice’s first vlog entry was quite interesting because he made it loud and clear in that his hip hop group paints pictures of pros-cons, ramifications and consequences of that dopeboy lifestyle. Plain and simple, it’s just entertainment. So rappers, I know you can be as normal as the next man. I know you’re annual income doesn’t match Donald Trump or Larry Ellison and I won’t doubt if those ‘rides’ are leased or just loaned. I can live with the fact that you’re normal but it says a lot if you; the rapper can’t live with that.
The quality and message in the music should be the concern.
-BBW
Keep the pork off the fork!
