(this might be too long for some of you, so fair warning 
)
but after seeing this new kid Dre is trying to break on a soundtrack for one of hip-hops most important groups, and given the overall reaction to the Drake/Meek beef, it's clear.
Rap is now completely pop music & soon image will trump everything else. Well you say, "but rap is already about image". True. But we're not talking about a "gangsta image" or the "street cred" idea which dominated the late 90's- early 00's, the type of stuff that ended Ja Rule's career. I'm talking about a SAFE image.
The street/gangsta image was for people from our era(the crowd 29-30 & up crowd). It was fodder for us..."who can vouch for so & so rapper in the streets?" "Let's find dirt so & so rapper."
But this younger generation(and I'm talking all races) came up on little to no gangsta/street music as the dominant form of rap. There was no grimey Wu-Tang, or DMX, or Master P/early CMR, or Death Row etc for them. They grew up beginning in the Soulja Boy, T-Pain, snap music, era beginning 10 years ago. These kids are 18-19 now and what defines rap music for most(not all) of them, is NOT what WE know it as. We have some common ground such as Kanye, Jay, Snoop & couple others, but Jay Z/Snoop music doesn't mean the same thing to a 19 year old as it does a 31 year old.
5-7 years from now, even trap music will be out of view and popular rap will no longer be about street stuff PERIOD. And if it is, it'll be a small niche market....or it'll be super ignorant stuff marketed strictly at the Black community.
Like pop music, it won't be about talent, it'll be about labels saying, "Ok, you have an amatuer flow/skill set, but we like ur look.....we can take that and give you songs from this talented (black) guy here who doesn't have "the look we're looking for" and he will write ur raps." To most of our surprise(including Meek Mill's, LOL) this week, the 2015 public doesn't give two sh*ts who writes the lyrics. B/c ultimately, to the public rap as an artform isn't respected beyond the money it brings, or a fun night of partying/clubbing......now if a scandal broke and someone suggested Taylor Swift had ppl writing her songs then you'd see a different public reaction.
Going forward, the term rapper will be completely redefined and mean the same thing as "singer". Without saying it, the term rapper has always meant, "rapper-songwriter". Going forward, a rapper will mostly just be a mouthpiece, maybe change a word here & there.
And the young 13 year old Black kid right now who really wants to make it as a rapper but doesn't have "the look", in 5-7 years will sell out to write for the new label created hot act, and you can't blame him. Maybe he'll get a lucrative pub deal, or maybe he'll give away his hits for pennies on the dollar b/c he needs to eat. He may be revealed at some point as the song-writer behind so-n-so, & maybe he'll get his shot at a solo career and maybe he won't. It'll be like many singers who began as writers.
They messed up somehow with Iggy Azalea and MGK/Yelawolf(although both of them are legit artist), but they'll learn from that mistake and tweak it before the next ones come thru.
TLDR/cliffnotes: Now that the industry knows without a doubt the current public doesn't give a sh*t about who writes rap lyrics, it's anything goes.
)but after seeing this new kid Dre is trying to break on a soundtrack for one of hip-hops most important groups, and given the overall reaction to the Drake/Meek beef, it's clear.
Rap is now completely pop music & soon image will trump everything else. Well you say, "but rap is already about image". True. But we're not talking about a "gangsta image" or the "street cred" idea which dominated the late 90's- early 00's, the type of stuff that ended Ja Rule's career. I'm talking about a SAFE image.
The street/gangsta image was for people from our era(the crowd 29-30 & up crowd). It was fodder for us..."who can vouch for so & so rapper in the streets?" "Let's find dirt so & so rapper."
But this younger generation(and I'm talking all races) came up on little to no gangsta/street music as the dominant form of rap. There was no grimey Wu-Tang, or DMX, or Master P/early CMR, or Death Row etc for them. They grew up beginning in the Soulja Boy, T-Pain, snap music, era beginning 10 years ago. These kids are 18-19 now and what defines rap music for most(not all) of them, is NOT what WE know it as. We have some common ground such as Kanye, Jay, Snoop & couple others, but Jay Z/Snoop music doesn't mean the same thing to a 19 year old as it does a 31 year old.
5-7 years from now, even trap music will be out of view and popular rap will no longer be about street stuff PERIOD. And if it is, it'll be a small niche market....or it'll be super ignorant stuff marketed strictly at the Black community.
Like pop music, it won't be about talent, it'll be about labels saying, "Ok, you have an amatuer flow/skill set, but we like ur look.....we can take that and give you songs from this talented (black) guy here who doesn't have "the look we're looking for" and he will write ur raps." To most of our surprise(including Meek Mill's, LOL) this week, the 2015 public doesn't give two sh*ts who writes the lyrics. B/c ultimately, to the public rap as an artform isn't respected beyond the money it brings, or a fun night of partying/clubbing......now if a scandal broke and someone suggested Taylor Swift had ppl writing her songs then you'd see a different public reaction.
Going forward, the term rapper will be completely redefined and mean the same thing as "singer". Without saying it, the term rapper has always meant, "rapper-songwriter". Going forward, a rapper will mostly just be a mouthpiece, maybe change a word here & there.
And the young 13 year old Black kid right now who really wants to make it as a rapper but doesn't have "the look", in 5-7 years will sell out to write for the new label created hot act, and you can't blame him. Maybe he'll get a lucrative pub deal, or maybe he'll give away his hits for pennies on the dollar b/c he needs to eat. He may be revealed at some point as the song-writer behind so-n-so, & maybe he'll get his shot at a solo career and maybe he won't. It'll be like many singers who began as writers.
They messed up somehow with Iggy Azalea and MGK/Yelawolf(although both of them are legit artist), but they'll learn from that mistake and tweak it before the next ones come thru.
TLDR/cliffnotes: Now that the industry knows without a doubt the current public doesn't give a sh*t about who writes rap lyrics, it's anything goes.
at the results.
