there's a lot of fukk shyt happening in the rap world right now, a lot of shyt we as consumers are complicit in because of our insatiable appetites for hot new music from the internets. a lot of self serving nikkas appropriating flows under the guise of paying homage and advancing "the culture", but when you ask these same nikkas to explain what exactly this "culture" is, they hit you with the most bullshyt generic answers and that leaves a bad feeling in my tummy.
I know in my heart that these nikkas aren't genuine when they start talking about the culture, I may be sweeping with a large broom by saying that but it's how I feel, I don't think they care about the culture anywhere near as much as they care about pumping out the next song of the moment, and there's nothing wrong with that, just be honest, don't bullshyt me with all this culture talk when you can't even articulate what the culture is.
Black people can be culture vultures too.
as cacish as that statement might seem, I believe it to be truth as I've personally witnessed it, and so have you! you've heard Ace Hood use a flow and then heard that same flow used over and fukking over until it was worn the fukk out - nikkas unapologetically squeezed every drop of juice out of that flow for nearly a year.
fast forward to 2013, Migos are on fire, rare flows are emerging, flows we remember from the 90's with a more modernized feel, deadly flows reengineered to strike and infect more effectively like airborne Ebola, and the vultures couldn't wait to have a taste, circling and salivating, calling producer nikkas at 4am asking "can you make me a beat that sounds like this", and then hitting the studio to do their best Quavo impressions, without any voice of reason to show them the error of their copycat ways.
fast forward just a tiny bit more and another wild challenger appears, Young Thug. I was introduced to thugger by one of the only cac writers I trust, Noz. I was browsing his blog and happened upon 'Haiti Slang'
I was smitten..
What impressed me most is the fact that he's obviously freestyling, but also navigating through different *flow-classes, while purposely altering his voice and inflection to mimic a sound you might have heard coming out of Swisha House in the 90's, that requires a lot of brain power and demonstrates how talented he is.
*
Thugger later drops 'Stoner' and 'Danny Glover' and set the the skreets ablaze, people really didn't know what to make of it, but Thugger is a very calculated person, he knew he had two monsters on his hands, just look at how calm he was at the listening sesh, he's gauging reactions, measuring the air vibrations.
once the vultures realized that Thugger's unique style was gaining traction, they wasted no time biting, song after song of rappers poorly imitating his cadences and adlibs, not bothering to take notice of Thugger's amazing ability to float between 3-5 completely different flows on any given song, the vultures took the easiest flow to reproduce and went crazy.
fast forward yet again, and we're deep into a fukkery filled 2014, originality takes a backseat to capitalism and you can barely tell who's who anymore because they're all competing to outdo another nikka at mimicking a whole nother nikka.
Travis Scott is beginning to blow up, I feel like it's manufactured but that doesn't take away from him actually being talented. I finally have him a listen this past week and couldn't help but see him as a puzzle made up of a ton of other nikkas, not in a sense of him being an artist inspired by other nikkas, but as an artist who will flat out copy what someone else is doing and add his own signature to it.
I love the song Skyfall, it's absolutely marvelous, but it comes off as Shang Tsung feat. Young Thug, I feel that way even more so after watching Travis in studio with Boomin while working on Skyfall, it's like Travis tapped into his inner Thugger and then had the audacity to put Young Thug on the song.
I'd love to hear Thugger's 'off the record' feelings about this, but judging by his verse on Skyfall, which is amazing by the way, it's my opinion that he wasn't all that into the song, he didn't go the extra mile to polish his verse with the sacred adlibs.
here are some tweets to read n stuff.
I can't really provide any context to Noz's tweets nor do I intend to, but I'll post them and let you draw your own conclusions:
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Noz for spitting the real
Interesting...
