Artist Arrogance
Now arrogance and hip-hop go hand in hand. To some extent if you want to be in this game and be successful at it, you have to feel a certain way about yourself. You also have to be able to make other people believe it, but these days, shit is getting out of hand. You have a lot of artists who haven't done anything as of yet and carry themselves with no sense of humility. You have artists who while commercially successful, have not proven themselves quite completely in the hip-hop arena, and who give themselves titles which no one questions.
To start I'm going to post this clip from Nicki Minaj:
Now I like Nicki as filling a slot where no one exists right now. I do have a problem with the way she is 'carrying' herself at the moment. She looks like she's already made it, like success has already hit her. Yet with no releases she truly is a nobody. The affiliation with fellow arrogant for no reason Lil' Wayne has undoubtedly taken some of the hunger from her. Older clips she shows the hunger and attitude, not the laziness complacency that I see here.
Then you have people Like the aforementioned, Weezy F. Baby, who calls himself the best rapper alive yet won't prove it. I mean honestly, his last album was subpar, he doesn't have a variety of subject matter and he raps so much his good lines are few and far between. Then he wouldn't get into any type of altercation with 50, leaving it to Ross who showed how you can benefit from rap beef. Don't forget this performance from a few weeks ago.
Now someone who deserves to be arrogant, it's Ludacris. Let me tell you why, he doesn't make any ridiculous claims about being the king of anything, he just goes out and puts out his verses. Consistently, whoever is considered "hot", Luda does a song with that person and rips their track to shreds, making the artist look foolish. Yet he doesn't get the respect he deserves because he isn't "street enough". His albums are no worse than anything put out by Wayne, or Plies, Or Ross.
I understand, to get to the top you have to feel a certain amount of pride, Jay wouldn't have gotten there, Puffy wouldn't be the man that he is to day and 50 cent, Cam'ron, and Jim Jones are just some of those who wouldn't have made it this far. The thing is for the most part these guys have at least earned it. They have put in work on multiple fronts to get their "props" so to speak.
What is your idea on earning the right to be arrogant?
To start I'm going to post this clip from Nicki Minaj:
Now I like Nicki as filling a slot where no one exists right now. I do have a problem with the way she is 'carrying' herself at the moment. She looks like she's already made it, like success has already hit her. Yet with no releases she truly is a nobody. The affiliation with fellow arrogant for no reason Lil' Wayne has undoubtedly taken some of the hunger from her. Older clips she shows the hunger and attitude, not the laziness complacency that I see here.
Then you have people Like the aforementioned, Weezy F. Baby, who calls himself the best rapper alive yet won't prove it. I mean honestly, his last album was subpar, he doesn't have a variety of subject matter and he raps so much his good lines are few and far between. Then he wouldn't get into any type of altercation with 50, leaving it to Ross who showed how you can benefit from rap beef. Don't forget this performance from a few weeks ago.
Now someone who deserves to be arrogant, it's Ludacris. Let me tell you why, he doesn't make any ridiculous claims about being the king of anything, he just goes out and puts out his verses. Consistently, whoever is considered "hot", Luda does a song with that person and rips their track to shreds, making the artist look foolish. Yet he doesn't get the respect he deserves because he isn't "street enough". His albums are no worse than anything put out by Wayne, or Plies, Or Ross.
I understand, to get to the top you have to feel a certain amount of pride, Jay wouldn't have gotten there, Puffy wouldn't be the man that he is to day and 50 cent, Cam'ron, and Jim Jones are just some of those who wouldn't have made it this far. The thing is for the most part these guys have at least earned it. They have put in work on multiple fronts to get their "props" so to speak.
What is your idea on earning the right to be arrogant?
ok so Nicki is like Trina with better rhymes, or a Lil Kim clone. Nothing special but ok I guess, I wouldn't mind her being famous if a lot of her songs sound like click, clack(check her myspace if you haven't heard it.)
ReplyDeleteLol you know we agree about Wayne. Luda is decent to me. Overall emceeing requires arrogance imo. But I can easily tell the difference between hunger and earned arrogance and "I'm kind of a big deal" arrogance. Eff earning arrogance, cats need to be humble forever. Their music would be better if they did that, cuz they'd always be trying to stay hot as opposed to assuming everything they make is hot!
Thats the point I was trying to get at with Luda, because he gets on tracks with everyone who is sort of placed on a pedestal and goes hard on his verses.
ReplyDeleteBut it's one thing to have that arrogance and then do like wayne and kanye do is put out any thing and have the radio and public jump on it claiming it's the greatest thing when if you take time to look at it, it's not.