Keepin' the Faith

What happened to hip hop? Gone are the days of the immortal crews: N.W.A., A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, De La Soul, etc. Now we're left with rappers rambling about money, cars, weed, bitches, and partying. Don't get me wrong, there's still some substance out there, there's still some legit good music, but the majority has regressed and what was built up by great minds like Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Nas, Q-Tip, and Tupac is quickly being torn down.

So was Nas right? Is hip hop really dead? I guess not.. There are still some very credible producers and rappers left in the game. Despite all his whining and complaining, you have to give Kanye West some credit; the guy makes some of the best beats out there (hey, if Common and Jay-Z have had him produce the majority of their most recent stuff the guy has to be doing something right). He also has a talent for lyrics and can come up with some good content, at least better than most of the radio shit.

Although someone like Kanye can spit lyrics of substance, no one can tell a story like Raekwon could; no one really has the flow that Method Man did; no one can rap as smoothly as Q-Tip could; no one has that exciting, ridiculous, off the wall rap style like Ol' Dirty Bastard did; no one can bring such attention to the rap game as Biggie and Tupac did. Some do come close, MF Doom, Murs, Wale, K'Naan to name a few, but none are really at the level that the old greats were. I'm open to all types of music (from electro, to hip hop, to indie rock, even to jazz and experimental) yet I find myself downloading more and more rap from the 90s because, quite frankly, I just find a lot of the music being produced now to be annoying. It's frustrating to not be able to find new music that I really like. Every once in a while I stumble across something I really dig but more often than not it's not something released in the last 15 years.

Despite all this, I don't think that all hope is lost. Examples. The Cool Kids have funny lyrics about almost anything (bicycles, fishing for whales, and directions to a party) and Chuck Inglish's production is reminiscent of old school, minimal, bass-heavy beats. Wale can do some incredible stuff lyrically and is an extremely versatile rapper who can rap over your traditional hip hop beat or switch things up and rap over an electro-disco song (W.A.L.E.D.A.N.C.E.). Murs is also insane lyrically. I guess you can compare him a lot to Raekwon with the story-telling rap style, something impressive and pretty rare. Once again, Kanye West has an incredible talent for music production. Lupe Fiasco, one of the few mainstream artists that I really love, has some really quality production and can really string together strong rap after strong rap making his albums some of the most complete, all killer no filler compilations out there.

I guess I may just be a pessimist and your classic "the old stuff was better" kind of guy, but music always changes direction and I just can't find the substance in the new direction hip hop has taken. Let's just hope hip hop is not dead. I'm keeping the faith.