In the middle of September, the Drake and Future collab mixtape “What a Time to be Alive” dropped essentially out of nowhere. As a huge Drake fan, I was obviously excited and showed some of my friends a few of the songs. A common statement from my friends was that the songs sounded like there were randomly slurred words and then Drake came in. Since so mnay of my friends had this complaint, I set out to determine the root of the issue.
This style of slurred rapping is becoming very popular today. You have Future, Rich Homie Quan, Yung Thug, Migos and more and more all using the style. If you aren't a hip hop head, it can be hard to understand what these rappers are saying. This makes it confusing for most people to understand why they rap like that at all. So the question is: why do people rap like this, and why are so many people today picking up the style?
The answer to why people slur their raps is simple: you aren’t really supposed to understand them because what they’re saying isn’t what matters. Instead, what matters is how the song sounds as a whole. When someone slurs their words, then their rapping becomes a little more like singing, where the emphasis is the sound and flow of each verse as opposed to the sound integrity of each word. Listen to some Future and you’ll notice that his sentences have some ebb and flow, some up and down. They’re really nice to listen to overall. However, the tradeoff for this pleasant sound is the loss of word clarity.
This trend of integral fluidity for the sake of artistic pleasure is not new in art. If you look at the history of painting, it is seen in the transition of the bold and detailed Romantic period to the free flowing and nondescript Impressionist period. This trend has also been going on forever in the vocal arts. Go to an opera and try and understand what they’re saying. In fact, most popular operas aren’t even in English. That is how little the words matter.
Not only is this trend not new in art, it isn’t even really new in hip hop. If you listen to some Wu-Tang, you know exactly when ODB starts rapping. And while you understand what he’s saying, nobody is trying to say ODB had the prettiest voice. On the other side of the spectrum, if anyone reading this can understand what Shaggy is saying in “It Wasn’t Me,” I will buy you a steak dinner. OK, not really, but the point remains that he doesn’t make any sense at all.
There is a second question I haven’t answered. There might be a reason for why slurring is done, by why are so many people doing it? If you must know, here is why: the reason this style is so pervasive today is because it is really easy and it sells records. That’s the dirty truth. Yes, there is also the fact that art is a constantly changing medium, but most people make art today to make money. People make fun of Future for rapping like he does, but “DS2” (his newest album) sold over a quarter million copies. “What a Time to be Alive” (the album mentioned at the beginning) is almost at half a million. Say what you want, but the numbers don’t lie; people like slurring. Add this to the fact that slurring words makes rhyming way easier and it is easy to see why so many people embrace this style.
So you can tell Future he doesn’t make any sense at all. But he doesn’t care what you think, because he is “sipping on Dom Pérignon for no reason.”
