Lets not pretend that wasn't a thing back in the day too. I'll never forget when Informer by Snow dropped and a bunch of my peers had no clue who Shan was. This was 1993. They thought he was just some random rapper.
And lets be real. In the 90's we weren't familiar with every 60's or 70's R&B act like that either. We knew the basics. I don't expect these youngins to be locked in with a passion for knowing the history like that. The reality is the youngins of every era are gonna be more in tune with whatever is popping in their era, like for instance, I done heard too many young cats in their 20's who keep saying that they don't know Will Smith and Ice Cube for being rappers. They know them for being actors. Similar to me experiencing Ronald Regan being the president in the 80's, not knowing him as an actor from the 50's.
Plus it's up to the individual if they want to pursue learning about the history. The same way I once perused learning about The Ink Spots and Billy Eckstine and Julia Lee and Louis Jordan and Bull Moose Jackson. Those names were huge back in the 1940's but most people in my age range aren't familiar. I know of them because as an individual I did research on Black music from the 40's.
idk about back in the day bro im 31. i was raised a certain way and i also go out of my way to look into the origins of any subject im into. any subject, because its important to not half ass in life.
as a group it is very important for us to know who we are. so if you are admitting that this is on the older generation for not ensuring knowledge is taught as the norm, then sure i agree with you. i am doing my part to change that through my own personal actions.
you don't need to know every act, but you should have a solid foundation, understanding and knowledge of those who came before and paved this way.
this isnt localized to just hip hop, enough of us don't know enough about our history in general and we are the creators of basically all relevant modern music.
imagine shytting on a black kid or calling her an outsider because she likes rock music. but you wouldnt have that mindset if you knew that it was people like chuck berry, little richard, jimi hendrix and even prince who were foundational to the creation and modernization of rock. again, this is a failure of prior generations.
this is also why you have people from other countries feeling comfortable telling us they created our shyt. im in thailand rn and my uber driver had no idea black people created neosoul and jazz, music that he was listening to. but they can create it, profit from it and we got no parts of that. to me this is unacceptable, and again on the older generations for letting people step in and out of our shyt with no guidance, rules and parameters.
we are in the middle of a culture war and so i practice what i preach as a scholar warrior. its not a good look to shyt on your own people because they may not sell as many records or have as much relevancy with a younger crowd or twitter users. that shyt is wild corny.
who decides whats popping in this era? a bunch of old cacs with small hats and their anglo counterparts. we are at war and i refuse to be swept up in the excuses. back in the day you had way less social engineering of society in general so the burden to know wasn't as imperative as it is now, but its also easier than ever to know the truth because it's so readily documented and available. there is literally no excuse.
rapper than the 20 year old.
