When Did Rap Become So Ridiculous?

[theworldismine13]

When Did Rap Become So Ridiculous?
When Did Rap Become So Ridiculous? | RapRehab

I’m sorry, but at what point do rappers become ridiculous? Yes, I understand that you’re insanely wealthy and you own 16 cars and ALL of your bytches (of which you have several) are extremely fly as well as half-naked, not to mention there’s a gigantic pool in your backyard where all of your fly bytches congregate.

I get it. I got it the first 847 times every commercial rapper (save for one or—well, one) tried to stuff that garbage down my throat. Can’t anyone be a little more original?

The culture of materialism and degradation that’s posing as hip hop makes me nauseous. Listening to modern-day mainstream rap after growing up during hip hop’s golden age is like finding out your little sister has become a prostitute.

Call me crazy, but it should be a little more difficult to become a successful rapper than to adhere to all of the simple stereotypes. There should be more to rising up rap’s ranks than slathering yourself with jewelry, surrounding yourself with expensive objects and scantily-clad women, and bragging about how much dope you moved last week.

It should have something do with skill. It should have everything to do with art.

I rant because I love hip hop. I love where it came from and I love what it stands for.

I do not love the festival of wackness that currently masquerades as hip hop, convinces the world at large this is what hip hop is, and reduces a culture that spoke for and spoke to marginalized communities and shaped and molded so many young lives down to a punch line and a paycheck.

At one time, hip hop depicted a reality that society systematically ignored but desperately needed to see. As much as it was about a sound, it was about a story.

Granted, not every rap song was a bleak portrait of life in the ghetto on par with Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five’s “The Message” or a searing attack on police brutality like N.W.A.’s “fukk Tha Police.” But it was at least an authentic slice of life from the rapper’s point of view.

Now, by and large, commercial rap simply celebrates self-destruction via drugs, violence and casual sex while mass-producing the illusion of a never-ending party.

There’s little room for the real world when you’re drowning in Cristal.

Some say the problem with rap lies with the industry. In other words, as long as record execs are signing checks for any chump willing to rhyme about physically assaulting strangers in between escapades with voluptuous women, radio rap will not change.

Others say the problem lies with the radio stations that play the music. Or with the fans who buy it.

But at some point, the responsibility has to fall back to the artists.

There’s nothing wrong with working hard and having something to show for it.

There is something wrong with perpetuating a modern-day minstrel show just to “get that paper.”

Especially when you’re in a position to positively, or negatively, influence so many lives.

Especially when there are so many issues worthy of addressing through music that don’t involve choosing which diamond-encrusted watch to wear to the club.

Rap’s obsession with shiny objects and fat asses seems to have blinded the masses about what’s truly valuable. But hip hop collective Jurassic 5 got it right in “What’s Golden”:

“We’re not ballin’/or shot callin’/we take it back to the days of yes yallin’/we’re holdin’ onto what’s golden.”
Hip hop in its purest form is golden, more valuable than any jewelry a misguided rapper could wear.


It is brilliant. It is beautiful.

It is sad to hear what so many teenagers blast out of their cars today, never having known the difference.

 

[The Real]

The artists aren't the crux of this issue. They can write conscious raps if they want to- then they won't get signed and their conscious messages won't get heard. The problem is with both the labels and the audience.

 

[Vandelay]

Perpetuation of what sells and what's pushed by the media limits creativity of the artists trying to make it in the game.

Consciousness doesn't sell because it's not pushed by the media, artists don't write conscious material because they don't hear it in the media.

 

[tmonster]

I stopped listening years ago
precisely for the reason in the OP
vote with your feet

 

[tmonster]

The artists aren't the crux of this issue. They can write conscious raps if they want to- then they won't get signed and their conscious messages won't get heard. The problem is with both the labels and the audience.

as audience, I did my part
I stopped letting them pollute my ears and I only go to concerts of talented artists, Brian McKnight, Maxwell, Anita, Chrissete Michelle, the list goes on and on. They don't have to get my money.
oh also, Broadway is where a lot of great musical talent are hiding (if you missed "in the heights" when it came out you messed up) I suggest "Black Angels over Tuskegee" as well show was so good I had to get the fam to go back with me a second time.


and lastly, Alvin Ailey is a perennial must
if you want to see beautiful black people expressing their graceful, soulful and beautiful selves then that's where it's at

I always leave the show, which is peppered with religious overtones, feeling inspired (and I'm atheist)
takademe, revelations and the hunt are a must

 

[Scientific Playa]

http://www.thecoli.com/threads/why-black-people-must-stand-up-to-toxic-and-negative-hip-hop.194296/#post-7533583.

 

[tmonster]

PS: brehs go see Anita Baker before she passes on, she is a generational talent
the lady can still blow the roof of at over 50 years old
so many classics and memories at her last concert a few years back

 

[Domingo Halliburton]

although this article re-hashes things that have been said a million times I tend to agree. I rarely listen to it but I still do keep up with some of the stuff that comes out.

but it seems to me rap has always been flashy and materialistic even in it's "golden age"

 

[Robbie3000]

This has been said in one way or another about music since Jazz.

 

[88m3]

southern rap and those beats to me are atrocious




I really don't follow it anymore.

 

[Yuzo]

This has been said in one way or another about music since Jazz.

 

[Robbie3000]

Culture Shock: The TV Series and Beyond: The Devil's Music: 1920's Jazz



Jazz was known as the devil's music..... some argued. Some said it was going to destroy the fabric of America.

 

[PikaDaDon]

Most people here on the this very are contributing to the problem.

 

[tmonster]

Culture Shock: The TV Series and Beyond: The Devil's Music: 1920's Jazz



Jazz was known as the devil's music..... some argued. Some said it was going to destroy the fabric of America.

your primary claim is not unfamiliar nor unplausible to any of us
but your equivalence is false
it's black people complaining about hip hop and with objective claims
not only that we, unlike the impetus of the surreptitiously racist vitriol jazz faced early on, we want to keep the baby, just not the bath water
not only that, I personally think that all cultures need have an underbelly and accordingly the art of the culture will have one too but when it is mostly underbelly and a contrived one at that, that's a problem

 

[Micky Mikey]

Culture Shock: The TV Series and Beyond: The Devil's Music: 1920's Jazz



Jazz was known as the devil's music..... some argued. Some said it was going to destroy the fabric of America.

I hate to even entertain this point but the differences between 1920's jazz and today rap are so stark its not even worth mentioning. There is a clear message in rap and it isn't even subliminal. The message : Degrade yourself and black people. Everyone in their right mind knows something must be done with rap.few have the balls to each call these artist to task. The question is What and when is something going to be done to avert the destruction they've caused.The damage it has caused our youth is castostrophic. And these artist are the same type of individuals who would have sold their own people in slavery. their are about as despicable as one could be.