Sunday, September 26, 2010

My Bad

 People always say (myself included) that today's rap artists are simple and banal.
That rap doesn't have the same power that it once had.
That old school rap actually talked about something important.
But the thing that I often forget is that rap music was not always pop music.
P.E. or the Wu-Tang Clan never had a number one single - they were the outsiders.
The rap that actually crossed over was just as simple as today's pop.

It's not that today's rap sucks - it's only that much of today's rap is really just pop.
Look back twenty years at the top songs of 1990;
http://top40.about.com/od/top10lists/tp/1990top10.htm
How many songs would you say are classic or socially important.
It's not so much that rap went pop, it's only that pop went rap.

4 comments:

Reggie said...

Nah John, I'm gonna have to throw the bullshit flag on this one. Today music definitely sucks!!!

uglyblackjohn said...

Uh uh...
Today's 'popular music' sucks.
There are still a lot of good artists around - they just get little air play.
But I don't blame the artists as much as I blame the major labels.
I can't stand Weezy but I didn't mind his stuff when Cash Money was independent.
Or as much as I blame Clear Channel and Cumulus.
back in the day, radio stations could play songs no one had heard.
Today, playlists are dictated by corporations.

brohammas said...

Nail on the head UBJ.
Yesterday's pop sucked too.

Mr. Noface said...

My sentiments exactly! The reason hip hop is dying today is because she is malnourished. There has been a consistent junk food (hip pop) only diet in hip hop for much of the past 10 years. It's the lack of variety or innovation that's killing hip hop. The formula for success has been discovered and there are too few attempts at deviating from the formula. The path to mainstream is quite narrow.