Are current rappers less smart than rappers of the past generations? Is that why the music is trash?

[JetFueledThoughts]

Yes.

The answer is yes

 

[Amo Husserl]

Labels pushin' dumbed down content because they never cared about hip-hop outside of the return on investment.
Since black people the creators and lifeblood of a culture reduced to a genre, dumb rappers make us look bad compared to jazz, R&B, rock n roll...

Smart rapper are not given big contracts anymore … before it was balanced …

the audience they are rapping for is dumber

They're less creative that's most of it and since intelligence plays a factor in creativity I'd assume the statement is true.

Although there were dropouts, rappers in the 90s talked to others, exchanged ideas and matched wits because they cared about their culture.
They came from families, communities that put high value on education.
New York history of black intellectualism from the Harlem Renaissance continued to the end of the century.
Cosby renewed HBCU interest, people in the City were educated talking to people who weren't and knowledge was shared.
Militancy was a factor. The City was a powder keg of knowledge and creativity.
All it took was some money and somebody willing to dumb down. Rapping for the Grammy instead of stimulating minds.

 

[downtheline]

Silk the shocker and E-40 CHOSE to ignore beats several times

In the 90s we dealt with snow, markey mark, and whomp there it is. We had dumb shyt too, just a different type of dumbed down

Being off beat can work , depending on the song. If its like half a beat behind it works, but these cats are waaay behind.

E40 made it work, I would argue even Silk did (to an extent)

 

[TMBlue]

Today, being "dumb" is the "smart" move, ironically enough.

 

[jerzboy]

Although there were dropouts, rappers in the 90s talked to others, exchanged ideas and matched wits because they cared about their culture.
They came from families, communities that put high value on education.
New York history of black intellectualism from the Harlem Renaissance continued to the end of the century.
Cosby renewed HBCU interest, people in the City were educated talking to people who weren't and knowledge was shared.
Militancy was a factor. The City was a powder keg of knowledge and creativity.
All it took was some money and somebody willing to dumb down. Rapping for the Grammy instead of stimulating minds.

This is the answer... Not just to hip hop, but the community as a whole....

 

[_DC]

Yo, that NLE Choppa shyt is disgusting..

 

[419scam]

whole album fire

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

Labels pushin' dumbed down content because they never cared about hip-hop outside of the return on investment.
Since black people the creators and lifeblood of a culture reduced to a genre, dumb rappers make us look bad compared to jazz, R&B, rock n roll...

Late 70s/early 80s emcees (not so-called "rappers") actually listened to and studied jazz, R&B, gospel and Rock N Roll.

Emcees were rhyming on top of Grover Washington Jr, Bob James, Horace Silver and Ramsey Lewis grooves...this is from when what became Hip Hop
was a deejay-centered activity.

Currently generation has absolutely NO connection to the rich legacies of all forms of music.

 

[Wear My Dawg's Hat]

This is the answer... Not just to hip hop, but the community as a whole....

Yes.

It's an overall decline that has spread well beyond the limited knowledge base that Hip Hop provides.

Just listen to post-selection interviews with the 2023 NBA Draft picks as they mumbled to Monica McNutt and Stephen A.

...and then compare their stumbling elocution to the past eloquent generations of athletes including Muhammad Ali, Bill Russell, Curt Flood, Jackie Robinson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jim Brown, Len Elmore, Clyde "Wordsmith"Frazier, Bob Gibson, Julius Erving, Maury Wills and others.

 

[King Poetic]

nikkas are pure lazy

And the rap game has become the new drug game, over saturated with trash

U got 500,000 rappers from NY and Cali
Then u add in 100,000 in Chicago and Detroit and another 50,000 in Atlanta and u add in the thousands from everywhere else Portland, Utah, Nebraska, etc etc and u get a whole lot of water down product with no history of music of the early 2000s at least ..

All these nikkas are drug users, autotune using, mumble bumbling rapping nikkas with no creativity and just want the spotlight on them

And u got stripper hoes who can’t rap outside of nothing but they p*ssy sweet, nikkas are dumb and they getting birkin bags and boss bytches meanwhile the real boss is their management team taking they money like porn managers take porn hoes doe…

U see how Drake continue to stay on top commercially… no competition…. And Kendrick can dropped a album every other year and win 6 awards, because these nikkas are garbage

Hell nicki her damn self stays on top because she’s the only one commercially for females that can rap

 

[Amo Husserl]

Late 70s/early 80s emcees (not so-called "rappers") actually listened to and studied jazz, R&B, gospel and Rock N Roll.

Emcees were rhyming on top of Grover Washington Jr, Bob James, Horace Silver and Ramsey Lewis grooves...this is from when what became Hip Hop
was a deejay-centered activity.

Currently generation has absolutely NO connection to the rich legacies of all forms of music.

They came from families, communities that put high value on education.
New York history of black intellectualism from the Harlem Renaissance continued to the end of the century.

All it took was some money and somebody willing to dumb down. Rapping for the Grammy instead of stimulating minds.

Fletcher Henderson studied chemistry and mathematics.
As soon as black people as a whole stopped valuing education, using it to improve their art, when the big money came, they lost.


Black people let people trick them to thinking trades, degrees and being educated to improve their condition wasn't valuable.

 

[ISO]

Choppa nor Ice Spice are “dumb”…

Ice Spice was in college before her career took off and articulates very well in interviews. Her music also isn’t “stupid” the things she does musically are very calculated.

 

[ISO]

There have always been remedial nikkas in the rap game but there was always a sort of balance with a plethora of wordsmiths and orators at the top.

Kodak Black and NBA YoungBoy are two of the top rappers of their generation and both basically illiterate and on the spectrum.

One of the unfortunate consequences of the South dominating Hip Hop for the past 2 decades.

Kodak is not illiterate and he isn’t “dumb” he’s just a drug addict…

I suggest anyone who thinks Kodak is dumb to watch this interview in full

 

[Sauce Dab]

I don’t think rappers were smarter back then. They made better music sure but I don’t think they were smarter. Other than maybe Lupe and a couple others I don’t think none of these nikkas are no smarter or dumber than the average person

 

[ISO]

That nikka sounds like a poet laureate today, because Sexxy Red raps likes she reads at a fourth grade level.

It’s no difference between Pound Town and Slob on my Knob lol

What’s shawty not doing that past ratchet rappers were she has her lane and audience