Hip-hop is one of the most popular genres in today’s music world, coming up from a small neighborhood in the Bronx to the major music superstar it is today is quite an accomplishment. Like all genres, there are stereotypical things that people say when it comes to the genre, here are seven of the most common ones from what I’ve heard.
1. “'90s hip-hop is the best, today’s hip-hop sucks”
WRONG, well not outright wrong, but it is a little close-minded to downright disregard the fantastic music that is being produced today. I’m a ‘94 baby, so I wasn’t exactly listening to hip-hop at the turn of the millennium (I was six). Into my late teens I really gained a good understanding and love for hip-hop from mostly every era ('90s, early '00s and present, I have a tough time listening to '80s).
Every era has its pros and cons and to disregard the music of today is your loss. Yeah, things change and emcees lose their relevance but that doesn’t mean you can’t like today’s era of music for what it brings to the table. From "My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy" to "good Kid, m.A.A.d city," today's music is nothing to shrug your shoulders at.
2. “Biggie and Pac are the greatest of all time”
This one really grinds my gears, yes Biggie and Pac respectively are some of the best lyricists/artists of their generation and of hip-hop as a whole, but there are a lot of artists out there. Jay-Z, Outkast, A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, Kendrick Lamar, Kanye West, MF Doom, Nas, N.W.A., I mean the list really could go on and on. To say that these two emcees are the greatest of all time is really not doing justice to a whole lot of rappers who helped make them relevant. I would consider these two genre-changing, but they aren’t the greatest of all time.
3. “The current state of hip-hop is killing the genre”
This kind of ties in with the whole “'90s is the best hip-hop era” mentality. I think the reason so many people say this is because of a couple of factors:
- Hip-hop is now a commercialized, radio genre. Like pop and rock in its time, hip-hop is now a genre that record labels look at to make money. While there is a large handful of artists who make this sort of music (I’m looking at you Iggy Azalea), there is also a great portion of artists who try to stray as far away from this formula as possible.
- The age of the Internet has made it so much easier to get your music out: Back in the '90s, literal mixtapes and demo CDs (maybe some video) were the only hope for an upcoming artist. Today the Internet has made it much more accessible for consumers to get music, leading to an over-saturation of artists who just don’t have the talent or quality to stay relevant.
Yes, a lot of low-quality hip-hop music is being put out now (low-quality meaning basic hooks and dumbed-down lyrics) but this has been the case in every era of hip-hop, now it’s just easier to get it out. Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer weren’t Tupac and no one is expecting Tyga to be Kendrick Lamar.
4. “X artist is overrated”
Duh, this is a given. Not everyone is going to like an artist, it’s impossible to please everyone. Everyone has their own likes and dislikes. I’ve learned that fighting about music is going to get you nowhere except in a fight about a subject that is pure opinion. Word of advice: just nod your head and say okay.
5. “I really just look at lyricism to see if an artist is good or not”
Lyricism is one of the best ways to be able to relate to an artist, but that doesn’t mean an artist is good or not. Yes, it is cool if an artist has lyrical prowess, but that doesn’t mean less lyrical artists are any less talented. Look at Outkast, Outkast is a very popular and very influential southern hip-hop group, yet they aren't the most lyrically talented. What makes Outkast so good is their ability to come together as a whole collective with their music. An artist could have the best lyrics of any rapper out there, but if their music doesn’t come together as a whole, then they really aren’t that good.
6. “All rappers talk about the same things”
This is one that my father brings up time and time again to justify having me turn off that “junk I listen to” while we’re in the car together .
While it’s true that a lot of rappers talk about what I consider the “basic topics” of women, money, lavish lifestyles and drugs, there are a great portion of artists who express much more of who they are as a person. A name that has been circulating around the rap community for years is Kendrick Lamar. Kendrick is a fantastic artist, he has great lyrics, his production is fantastic and above all else, he is able to have a dedicated fan base by not resorting to explicitly talking about the “basic topics." Kendrick talks about a variety of topics such as survivor's guilt, prostitution and sexual abuse, black empowerment, and the beauty of a person, among others.
It's easy to label rappers as basic if you barely listen to their music, hip-hop is all about listening over and over again to take in the overall meaning and to catch something you didn't the first time around.
7. “I like their older stuff better”
We’ve all been there, we love an artist when they're first introduced and are an up-and-comer. They drop their first album and we go absolutely nuts over it, second album drops and the hype continues to grow, “So and So is the best!,” we chant. Then over time something happens that we don’t like. Whether it is them changing their sound, lyrical content, or even which genres they choose to blend together, sooner rather than later we look over to our friend when they ask about said artist and say, “I like their older stuff better."
It happens, artists evolve and grow and they can’t continue to be who they are on day one, 10 years into their career, it’s just not going to happen. Growth is a part of the experience, Jay-Z would not be considered one of the best if he talked about what he did on "Reasonable Doubt" on "The Blueprint" or "American Gangster" or even "Watch The Throne." I’m not saying you can’t like an artist for their older music (because trust me I do the same) but you can respect how they have grown as an artist.
Hip-hop is easy to make fun of. It's easy to generalize as a whole for the reputation it has built up over the years. Regardless, it's still a fantastic and growing genre, and the best part is, you never know what some artists have coming next.
