Finding My Lane
Now I have been perusing other hip-hop blogs recently to check out the competition and to share love when it is deserving. Most of the blogs I have seen have'nt seen as much original commentary and/or ideas that I would like.
Seeing that and looking at some of my opinions/criticisms of hip-hop culture and music would leave people to see me as some sort of new-age hipster or overtly conscious type of guy. Now when I look at this crowd I see people like Tabi Bonney (buy Tabi Bonney's new album "Dope" by clicking here) and Charles Hamilton. I don't fit in with these guys and find them terribly overrated as lyricists. Their style is their style and though I personally don't feel it, I'm not going to knock it, though I feel that it(being their style) is their main attribute. I like "Driving down the block" and "The Delivery Man" however I don't think I could listen to these guys for an entire album.
I'm not a thug nor gangster either, so Wayne, Rick Ross and Jeezy et. al. bore me. The coke rap and excessive talk of ballin and toting guns annoys me. In hip-hop we should be so past that. N.W.A. did it, Biggie did it, The Wu did it, he Lox did it, 8Ball and MJG did it, why do we still need artists to come out and talk about the same things without giving us any insight to their inner turmoil?
So I'm stuck in the middle. I try to listen to a good mix of artists. To me, guys like Common, Talib Kweli and Outkast are the best of the more moderate conscious rappers. Meaning they are able to entertain without dragging me into boredom trying to maintain some strict "hip-hop" vision from the 80's. On the other hand, Jay-Z, Ludacris, and T.I., are some of the artists who blend a street savvy, with lyrics and hot production with an attempt to speak on broader terms than just how cool it is in the hood.
Sometimes it seems as if there are only two or three lanes and that you can't switch back and forth to follow different artists comfortably, especially when you don't continue into the rest of the sub-genre or blend in with a particular fan base.I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way and I look forward to discussing it with you further as we blog together.
Seeing that and looking at some of my opinions/criticisms of hip-hop culture and music would leave people to see me as some sort of new-age hipster or overtly conscious type of guy. Now when I look at this crowd I see people like Tabi Bonney (buy Tabi Bonney's new album "Dope" by clicking here) and Charles Hamilton. I don't fit in with these guys and find them terribly overrated as lyricists. Their style is their style and though I personally don't feel it, I'm not going to knock it, though I feel that it(being their style) is their main attribute. I like "Driving down the block" and "The Delivery Man" however I don't think I could listen to these guys for an entire album.
I'm not a thug nor gangster either, so Wayne, Rick Ross and Jeezy et. al. bore me. The coke rap and excessive talk of ballin and toting guns annoys me. In hip-hop we should be so past that. N.W.A. did it, Biggie did it, The Wu did it, he Lox did it, 8Ball and MJG did it, why do we still need artists to come out and talk about the same things without giving us any insight to their inner turmoil?
So I'm stuck in the middle. I try to listen to a good mix of artists. To me, guys like Common, Talib Kweli and Outkast are the best of the more moderate conscious rappers. Meaning they are able to entertain without dragging me into boredom trying to maintain some strict "hip-hop" vision from the 80's. On the other hand, Jay-Z, Ludacris, and T.I., are some of the artists who blend a street savvy, with lyrics and hot production with an attempt to speak on broader terms than just how cool it is in the hood.
Sometimes it seems as if there are only two or three lanes and that you can't switch back and forth to follow different artists comfortably, especially when you don't continue into the rest of the sub-genre or blend in with a particular fan base.I hope I'm not the only one who feels this way and I look forward to discussing it with you further as we blog together.
I don't know what the light-skinned dude in Kidz In The Hall does because I just haven't seen or heard a lot of their music but, the other dude is NICE! I saw them on a talk show late night and he killed it. Back to your blog, I agree the oversaturation comes with the loss of originality. The reason people continue to do the same things is because they constantly see artist do the same tired ass approaches and they believe it can work for them as well.
ReplyDeleteThere's definitely only several lanes in hip-hop right now. In mainstream you're either a thug/hustler, or a wannabe ladies man (werd to Plies and the planet Saturn guest-starring as his head). Then in underground you're either true-school or hipster. Then there's the middle of the road cats like those you named.
ReplyDeleteIt's weird tho that now when I look at underground hip-hop, it's really stratified into the thugs/cats who just wanna rap, the true-schoolers, and the hipsters. I swear the underground wasn't like that a couple years ago.
lmao@ calling the his head the planet Saturn
ReplyDelete