Nas Doesn't See Any Brave Emcees

[Mad Good Dro]

Nas visited Georgetown University to depart some his impressions of Hip-Hop and culture and alerts us of his dissatisfaction with modern rappers.

As a rapper of legendary proportions, Nas was invited to the prestigious Georgetown University, along with Georgetown's own sociology professor, Michael Eric Dyson, to discuss at length with the director of Africana studies at Lehigh University, James Peterson, about the current state of Hip-Hop and the recent rise of higher learning pursuit within the culture.

If that sounds like the epitome of a dull way to spend an hour, know that the rapper touched on some important issues for the community, as Nas parts with his thoughts on the issues before a live audience preceding his live performance of Illmatic at the Kennedy Center.

He showed particular pride regarding the fact that 9th Wonder is currently attending the end-all, be-all of the ivy league, Harvard University. Nas went on the record, saying, "It’s so many layers to that question, where is Hip Hop? You talk about 9th Wonder at Harvard, I recently been over there and met with Skip Gates and Dr. Morgan and just watching where Hip Hop is today. Myself, re-releasing an album from 20 years ago is like, '20 years? That’s crazy.'”

Of course, when you don't have ignant rap, you have yourself conscious rap, which has a penchant for sounding both pretentious and corny bundled into some, oft times, righteous package of broad statements and condescending tones. Of this phenomenon, Nas said:

“I don’t see enough emcees who are brave enough to be honest. I would like to see more of that. There’s a lot of good stuff. There’s a lot of bad in Rap. The socially conscious stuff can come off sometime as preachy, so a lot of people tend to stay away from it. That ain’t their bag. That’s not what they do. But still, they kind of have some artistic responsibility to do more than what’s the latest trend...I would like to see people remember it’s an artform because the better we all become we push each other to make the whole artform better. Then we won’t have to worry about who won the Grammy.”

This isn't the first time Nas went critical on the recent crop of Hip-Hop artists. That's nothing new, but Nas also went on to explain how he wanted to bring his music to higher education.

“When I first started I said, ‘You know, it would be cool to talk at colleges...but that would never happen,’” he says. “That’s really what I thought. I didn’t know. It’s kind of like surreal but then at the same time, it’s what it’s supposed to be. Especially for me, at a place like the John F. Kennedy Center, I had like dreams of that kind of stuff early. I didn't think it was really possible. I kind of gave away those dreams. I let those dreams go. Now that it’s here, that it’s come around to this, it feels like this is where it’s supposed to be.”

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/nas-doesn-t-see-any-brave-emcees-news.9956.html

 

[atlbound]

Horse wasnt brave according to Jungle

 

[Prince.Skeletor]

 

[Man On Fire]

http://www.hotnewhiphop.com/nas-doesn-t-see-any-brave-emcees-news.9956.html

hip hop is art

the c00nery

 

[Mr. Negative]

Nas experiments with his songs.

Even if the shyt flops, he still experiments on the next album.

Songs for his girl, moms, dad,

songs where he's a jail cell, a bullet, a roach, a woman dying of cancer

songs where he's pretending to be a wack sam spade sounding private investigator from whatever era

Nas is always trying something new. Hate it, love it, respect it.

 

[*L*E*G*A*C*Y*]

TBH, I see where he's coming from and it's just really and truly disappointingly true. This generation of rappers...I've never seen a group of more nonsensical and uttlerly meaningless artists in my life. They really do stand for nothing. It's almost like the Brand Nubians, Public Enemies, Lakim Shabazzes, and others were just beaten into submission into these dumb puppets who just brag about killing people, high end fashion, moving bricks, and other flagrant bullshyt. Even rappers who don't do that (Drake, Kendrick, Chance The Rapper, etc) aren't saying anything meaningful or impactful in my eyes. I don't even know if it's rapper afraid to speak their minds moreso than it's people not willing to mess up their money and haven't found their own voice.

I don't know man...this generation is just lost and struggling to find it's identity in general. It's like things are all over the place and like mos def said on "fear not of man" if we are lost, then hip-hop is lost. Hip-hop is just always going to be a reflection of the people and the times so I guess we are beyond lost and trying to find ourselves collectively. That doesn't just apply to the black experience in general from where I'm speaking, but it also applies to hip-hop listeners across the board in general in the internet/social media/gentrification/globalized/etc world. It's almost as if the first world individual in general is too subservient or too passive or too content or too fed off of individual ignorance that they fail to stand for something. Or if they do stand for something, they forget about it and move on to the next thing to be mad about for 2 weeks...there is no struggle. Hip-hop's struggle reflects that of the youth itself. The world has changed and many are about to be left behind on account of their own negligence. While the powers that be are working behind the scenes to change the world without us...we're too distracted by too many things to care about one thing.

The first time I listened to hip-hop was in 1989 at 5 years old. What I saw and heard then changed my life. Fast forward now and I'm just saddened, frightened, freaked out, and generally just disconnected to what hip-hop is now.

The MCs don't stand for nothing anymore. There were real things that we were facing when I was listening to hip-hop in the 90s and just slowly watching it go commercial and become this pacified self-destructive and utterly vain mainstream artform is just bizarre.

 

[Myrical Lyfe]

The GOAT for a reason. Preach.

 

[Piff Perkins]

honestly I don't think Nas has listened to any new music in the last few years, outside of singles.

 

[Mr. Negative]

TBH, I see where he's coming from and it's just really and truly disappointingly true. This generation of rappers...I've never seen a group of more nonsensical and uttlerly meaningless artists in my life. They really do stand for nothing. It's almost like the Brand Nubians, Public Enemies, Lakim Shabazzes, and others were just beaten into submission into these dumb puppets who just brag about killing people, high end fashion, moving bricks, and other flagrant bullshyt. Even rappers who don't do that (Drake, Kendrick, Chance The Rapper, etc) aren't saying anything meaningful or impactful in my eyes. I don't even know if it's rapper afraid to speak their minds moreso than it's people not willing to mess up their money and haven't found their own voice.

I don't know man...this generation is just lost and struggling to find it's identity in general. It's like things are all over the place and like mos def said on "fear not of man" if we are lost, then hip-hop is lost. Hip-hop is just always going to be a reflection of the people and the times so I guess we are beyond lost and trying to find ourselves collectively. That doesn't just apply to the black experience in general from where I'm speaking, but it also applies to hip-hop listeners across the board in general in the internet/social media/gentrification/globalized/etc world. It's almost as if the first world individual in general is too subservient or too passive or too content or too fed off of individual ignorance that they fail to stand for something. Or if they do stand for something, they forget about it and move on to the next thing to be mad about for 2 weeks...there is no struggle. Hip-hop's struggle reflects that of the youth itself. The world has changed and many are about to be left behind on account of their own negligence. While the powers that be are working behind the scenes to change the world without us...we're too distracted by too many things to care about one thing.

The first time I listened to hip-hop was in 1989 at 5 years old. What I saw and heard then changed my life. Fast forward now and I'm just saddened, frightened, freaked out, and generally just disconnected to what hip-hop is now.

The MCs don't stand for nothing anymore. There were real things that we were facing when I was listening to hip-hop in the 90s and just slowly watching it go commercial and become this pacified self-destructive and utterly vain mainstream artform is just bizarre.

a people's identity is reflected by it's artistic culture.

it's the same way a community's identity is reflected by things like it's library.

And I can respect the fact that some people will stand up and say "not all......" but when you're only representing 10% or less of a culture, there's a problem.

Because it's like saying "there's people that actually read here" in a community, but you're the one person out of 10 people.

A people are programmed by what they see of their culture.

And this bullshyt is all we got.

as a whole, we've been trapped.

And it's sad because a lot of people will accuse you of selling out or being an uncle tom c00n mole nikka because they arrogantly believe that they represent the whole of our current culture....

when they only represent the culture's potential.

shyt's like a pre-programmed failsafe.

see the message under my avatar?

 

[RhymesWell]

There's been glimmers of hope but the game still needs a huge dose of reality rap. If you think back to the "Gangsta" rap era or or other mainstream eras of rap, you'd still have messages in the music despite everything. Even an album like The Chronic had the song "Lil Ghetto Boy" which to me had a lot of messages in it. Ice Cube and Ice T both were practically conscious just with a hard edge to it. I wish some of these fools could wake up a bit. I wouldn't mind seeing a rapper who can be fly and cool but still make some remarks on the bullshyt that goes on within the community. shyt Pac did it excellently and in a more modern regard Jay and Kanye aren't terrible at it. We need more of it coming from the artists that aren't already ridiculously rich. Imagine how powerful a record like 'New Slaves' would have been coming from an artist that wasn't as all over the place as Kanye? I think a shift can happen but it's going to take the bravery of at least 2 or 3 new acts. One guy who doesn't get his credit is Big Krit though.

 

[PIFF101]

“I don’t see enough emcees who are brave enough to be honest. I would like to see more of that. There’s a lot of good stuff. There’s a lot of bad in Rap. The socially conscious stuff can come off sometime as preachy, so a lot of people tend to stay away from it. That ain’t their bag. That’s not what they do. But still, they kind of have some artistic responsibility to do more than what’s the latest trend...I would like to see people remember it’s an artform because the better we all become we push each other to make the whole artform better. Then we won’t have to worry about who won the Grammy.”

 

[John Hull]

Didn't read the article yet, but Nas gets the ultimate respect for being a true artist. That being said, as far as being brave or whatever who gets to qualify or quantify what bravery is in the current climate. Sometimes just grabbing your nuts and sticking a middle finger up to the world is the bravest act you can muster.

I don't have the answers.

 

[mortuus est]

 

[Methodical]

Damn, who is she?

 

[Methodical]

TBH, I see where he's coming from and it's just really and truly disappointingly true. This generation of rappers...I've never seen a group of more nonsensical and uttlerly meaningless artists in my life. They really do stand for nothing. It's almost like the Brand Nubians, Public Enemies, Lakim Shabazzes, and others were just beaten into submission into these dumb puppets who just brag about killing people, high end fashion, moving bricks, and other flagrant bullshyt. Even rappers who don't do that (Drake, Kendrick, Chance The Rapper, etc) aren't saying anything meaningful or impactful in my eyes. I don't even know if it's rapper afraid to speak their minds moreso than it's people not willing to mess up their money and haven't found their own voice.

I don't know man...this generation is just lost and struggling to find it's identity in general. It's like things are all over the place and like mos def said on "fear not of man" if we are lost, then hip-hop is lost. Hip-hop is just always going to be a reflection of the people and the times so I guess we are beyond lost and trying to find ourselves collectively. That doesn't just apply to the black experience in general from where I'm speaking, but it also applies to hip-hop listeners across the board in general in the internet/social media/gentrification/globalized/etc world. It's almost as if the first world individual in general is too subservient or too passive or too content or too fed off of individual ignorance that they fail to stand for something. Or if they do stand for something, they forget about it and move on to the next thing to be mad about for 2 weeks...there is no struggle. Hip-hop's struggle reflects that of the youth itself. The world has changed and many are about to be left behind on account of their own negligence. While the powers that be are working behind the scenes to change the world without us...we're too distracted by too many things to care about one thing.

The first time I listened to hip-hop was in 1989 at 5 years old. What I saw and heard then changed my life. Fast forward now and I'm just saddened, frightened, freaked out, and generally just disconnected to what hip-hop is now.

The MCs don't stand for nothing anymore. There were real things that we were facing when I was listening to hip-hop in the 90s and just slowly watching it go commercial and become this pacified self-destructive and utterly vain mainstream artform is just bizarre.

Real f*cking talk.