When did it shift away from respecting/believing most rappers to today's skepticism?

[Existential]

People hardly ever questioned these nikkas, if a rapper was on BET mean muggin the camera, people believed he was a G. Now it's like, everyone wised up and stopped taking the images at face value. But WHEN did this happen? Did you notice the early stages?

When did it people start considering it (mostly) embarrassing to want to be a rapper? I've seen a lot of the sentiment shift to thinking you're a fukking man child if you're an aspiring rapper today. It was NOT always like that. Maybe younger nikkas don't remember, but we used to really, really, respect a dude just because he was nice at rapping.

 

[Deltron]

When the Internet, especially social media was embraced/became more popular.

There's no "mystique" anymore cause them same rappers mean muggin on camera/in their music videos are up on Instagram, Facebook, acting "normal" and sometimes, ridiculous.

 

[desp]

I think a lot of it is the accessibility of the internet these days... Back in the day you saw the interviews and heard the music and didn't focus much on behind the scenes shyt. Now we got cameras everywhere recording these dudes' every move. Add that on to the fact that everyone loves to see a rapper get "exposed" so if you're faking the funk, someone out there is gonna be on their job tryna disprove you.

But let's not get it twisted, a lot of rappers out now who talk that G shyt ARE softer than cats back in the 90's.

Edit: @Deltron beat me to it

 

[JQ Legend]

I know what u mean by back in the day people would have mad respect for a rapper

Back in the day when u told somebody you rapped they'd be like "let me hear something"

Now when you tell somebody you rap, the response is more like "dont we all"

I dont even tell people I rap anymore

 

[Average Coli Poster]

The content and demographic of rap has changed thats why. Why would anybody want to be a rapper now anyways? So you can rap about molly and turn up, have a couple of weirdo hipsters stalk you and live vicariously thru you. Sell no records. Get 360'd up. And have your work dissected by some 40 year old cac writers?
Times have changed

 

[Existential]

The content and demographic of rap has changed thats why. Why would anybody want to be a rapper now anyways? So you can rap about molly and turn up, have a couple of weirdo hipsters stalk you and live vicariously thru you. Sell no records. Get 360'd up. And have your work dissected by some 40 year old cac writers?
Times have changed

What bothers me so much about this is how it looks like rap never reached its true potential because of the self destructive mainstream, and that's the saddest fukking thing about it. No one has to rap about molly and all that other bullshyt, it's fukked up as hell.

Nobody has a problem with rapping they just assume that your raps will be what they've heard before. It's like, to say you're a rapper is almost like saying "I'm a violent, drug-dealing/using, sexist, ignorant motherfukker" in less words.

People will never know what rap was capable of, how the fukk could anyone expect them to dig in the crates for meaningful underground records when all they've ever heard is mainstream ignorance?

It's fukkED UP. fukkED UP.

 

[FreshAIG]

As everyone else said, it's the internet. Before when a rapper said they was street, there wasn't the outlets now and all the video evidence, exposals etc that there are now.

I remember when Boss got exposed in that Ny Times article it became like a huge deal. Now, nobody would really care all that much because it's expected. Now, as long as your music was good, people fukked with you. Back then, your rep meant everything, so if you got exposed as a fraud, your shyt was over

As I said many times, just as many fake gangsters were rapping in the late 80s and 90s as there are now (well not as many because there's just waaay more rappers in general now, but you get my point), it's just there wasn't all these things available back then for them to be exposed (Youtube, video blogs, worldstar, forbezdvd, etc...)

 

[Buckeye Fever]

I believe and respect Lil' Reese