Quote:
Originally Posted by ThurgreedMarshall
Some think of it as the death of real hip hop.
Straight Outta Compton was a great album. Very entertaining. But look at what it did. Rap had gone from block parties/I can rock a party better than you to my neighborhood is better than yours to creative sampling and social consciousness to fake ass gang bangers on wax. And aside from some lyrical oriented rappers here and there from that point until now, that's almost all it's been about. Once the country (read: suburban white kids) could classify it as gang music and consume that stereotype in neat little packages, that is all the labels were interested in. Hell, if an artist wants to escape that mold, he better have his own fuckin' label.
So, it's a great album, but giving birth to modern rap isn't exactly something to be proud of.
TM
eta: I'm not overlooking the fact that Straight Outta Compton was actually a social commentary too. Fuck tha Police was a powerful song and it spoke to the hopelessness and futility of growing up poor, black and under the thumb of the police before hand held cameras became affordable. But rappers are still hiding behind that, "I write what I see/know" explanation. And for most of them, it's pure bullshit.
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Yeah, it broke the ice for wannabe gangstas, but it I think it was a pretty radical statement for the time. "They have the authority to kill a minority. Fuck that shit, cuz I ain't the one, for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun." Or whatever the lyrics were.
Sebby, Express Yourself is a great tune, but it's pretty fucking funny to hear Dre clucking in disapproval at drug-using rappers, a couple of years before he comes stumbling out of the cheeba van with Snoop.
Lyrical-oriented rap still has a strong presence. Talib Kweli recently packed First Avenue at $25 a ticket. The Roots show no signs of slowing. I went to an outdoor concert during the RNC that had everyone from Billy Bragg to Mos Def, the fully reunited Pharcyde, and local rapper Atmosphere. There were a ton of people and Mos Def was worshipped like a god (although I could not help but think about the Stuff White People Like post on Mos Def). And Atmosphere has two sold out First Avenue shows next month. On a more underground tip, Murs just played back-to-back shows in Minneapolis, and I heard they were packed. And this is just off the top of my head about hip hop shows here in the last month and a half.
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