The year is 2017, and along with evrything else in the world music is rapdily evolving. Hip-Hop/Rap music is the most obvious example of this. Rap seems like its becoming more and more intelligible. I'ts commonly known as 'mumble rap'. Urban Dictionary defines mumble rap as, "A style of rap that originated in the South and spread to other places like Chicago and the New York/New Jersey area. The style usually consists of "mumbling" rap lyrics and sacrificing pronunciation clarity. The mumble style likely is influenced from the following elements: the Southern drawl & pronunciation, the drinking of the drug "lean" which can slur speech patterns, and the wearing of gold teeth which affects pronunciation."
Although this style of rapping is becoming extremely popular, it's still not gaining a whole lot of respect from the Hip-Hop community. Hip-Hop radio stations have a part in this too. Lil Yachty was highly criticized for his appearence on Hot 97 FM radio where they often play a beat and ask their guests to freestyle. Freestyling is when rappers rap along to a beat and makeup the lyrics as they go and is a very cherished pratice in Hip-Hop/Rap's history. Lil Yachty Struggled behind the mic and didn't really know what to say. Twitter blew up making fun of him and questioning his status as a rapper. He has also been criticized for saying he doesn't like one of the most respected names in Hip-Hop history, The Notorious B.I.G.'s music. Because of this mumble rappers are called disrespectful and criticized for not recognizing the roots of Hip-Hop. Lil Yachty later was feautured on the song 'Neon Lights' by Taylor Bennett and before his verse said, "(I'm tired of people) talkin' 'bout 'this is the way you got to do it', and you go to respect this type of person, and you got to listen to that type of person. I'm doing it the way I wanna do it."
But even more of this generation of rappers aren't freestyling, and i don't think they need to. No matter how much heat rappers like Lil Yachty take for being different, they are still selling music and charting on Billboard. Old school Hip-Hop fans might not like their methods and that includes me a lot of the time, but they have that artistic freedom and they should be able to make music the way they want. Rapper Ugly God talks about Lil Yachty's hate, saying, "They’ll talk so much stuff about his music, and then he’ll drop more music. And they’ll talk (smack) about that. What doesn’t make sense to me, if you feel like he’s trash, why (would you) listen to something else he dropped? If you hate it, you wouldn’t even pay any mind or even pay attention to him.”
The first time an old school rapper criticized the new wave of the genre, was Ice-T in 2008. Ice-T let his feelings towards Soulja Boy's hit 'Crank That (Soulja Boy)' by saying, "That (guy) single handedly killed Hip-Hop." Soulja Boy was only seventeen at the time.
Is this new movement of Hip-Hop/Rap justified by the sound simply changing? Or is it disrespectful for these new rappers to say old music is wack and they're music is better? I think you could even argue that it's changing so much that it should be considered it's own genre and not Hip-Hop.
Sources
http://hiphopdx.com/news/id.42631/title.ugly-god-on-mumble-rap-its-a-disrespectful-word
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7O9gnurSB8
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Mumble%20Rap
http://www.billboard.com/articles/columns/hip-hop/7625631/rise-of-mumble-rap-lyricism-2016
Bennett, Taylor. "Neon Lights." By Taylor Bennett. Restoration of an American Idol. Tay Bennett Entertainment, 2017. LP.
Monday, March 27, 2017
Monday, March 6, 2017
Race in Hip-Hop
In the book I'm reading, 'Mexican Whiteboy' the protagonist Danny struggles to fit in with the Hispanic kids in his neighborhood. He is constantly judged for how he looks and not his abilities on the baseball mound. He proves he is more capable than meets the eye and some kids don't like it. Why does it matter how he looks? This reminded me of race in hip hop and the struggle white artists go through. It is widely believed that most rappers are of the African American race, which is ironic because statistics show 80% of the Hip Hop/Rap audience to be white. Hip Hop was born on the streets of South Bronx with DJ Kool Herc mixing samples of other records. The youth of South Bronx responsible for the movement were primarily "English speaking blacks" with roots from Jamaica and Barbados. Hip Hop/Rap is a beloved part of the African American culture, and today it's one of the most popular genres of music. Not long ago, it was hard for white rappers to earn respect. Eminem was definitely one of the first to do so.
"I don't care if he's purple, as long as he can rap," said Dr. Dre in defense of Eminem being white. Why should it matter what the artist looks like if they're making good music that should be all the difference? I don't think it's fair to look at a white rapper as a foreigner, or as someone who doesn't belong. What is the difference between a black and white rapper? On Hot 97 FM radio, host Ebro had Macklemore on the show to discuss a little about this topic.
Ebro asked Macklemore, "Do you believe you were embraced by white radio because you are white, and you rap?"
Macklemore replies with a short, "yes,"
Macklemore then goes on to talk about the questions he's asked about the difference between him and an African American rapper.
"Why am I safe? Why can I cuss on a record, have a parental advisory sticker on the cover of my album, yet parents are still like, you're the only rap I let my kids listen to. Why can I wear a hoodie and not be labeled a thug? Why can I sag my pants and not be a gang banger? Why am I on Ellen's couch? Why am I on Good Morning America? If I were black, what would my drug addiction look like? It would be twisted into something else versus 'Get back on your feet!' "
Today, we are seeing a lot more white rappers making noise in the hip hop/rap scene. To name a few, Macklemore, Lil Dickey, Mac Miller, and MGK have all been successful artists. But is it really hard to earn respect as a white rapper today? The Fader had rappers Vince Staples, African American, and Mac Miller, white, to discuss the place of a white rapper today.
"White people definitely root for white people," Vince Staples said.
" That’s a huge reason why it’s become so big right now. People are like, “Yeah! A white guy rapping! I wanna support that because not a lot of white guys rap!” I remember hearing Eminem for the first time in my kitchen: I had a really little TV that was as big as my head, and “The Real Slim Shady” was on MTV. I definitely had a moment of being a young white kid rapping every lyric in the mirror," Mac Miller responded.
"Maybe the problem is that black people don’t support each other and don’t (respect) each other as much as they should." Vince Staples said.
This was interesting to me because Vince Staples made a good point. Since the white rapper seems to be outnumbered in the hip hop scene, he often gets respect from the white community because they can identify with each other. I think Vince Staples is suggesting an African American rapper isn't so hard to come by in the Hip Hop/Rap industry, so it's harder to earn respect. So this raises the question of if white rappers really struggle for the respect from the genre as they were used to.
Sources:
http://harvardpolitics.com/books-arts/politics-race-rap/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrMU9wm8hn4
http://www.thefader.com/2015/10/06/white-rappers-mac-miller-vince-staples-interview
"I don't care if he's purple, as long as he can rap," said Dr. Dre in defense of Eminem being white. Why should it matter what the artist looks like if they're making good music that should be all the difference? I don't think it's fair to look at a white rapper as a foreigner, or as someone who doesn't belong. What is the difference between a black and white rapper? On Hot 97 FM radio, host Ebro had Macklemore on the show to discuss a little about this topic.
Ebro asked Macklemore, "Do you believe you were embraced by white radio because you are white, and you rap?"
Macklemore replies with a short, "yes,"
Macklemore then goes on to talk about the questions he's asked about the difference between him and an African American rapper.
"Why am I safe? Why can I cuss on a record, have a parental advisory sticker on the cover of my album, yet parents are still like, you're the only rap I let my kids listen to. Why can I wear a hoodie and not be labeled a thug? Why can I sag my pants and not be a gang banger? Why am I on Ellen's couch? Why am I on Good Morning America? If I were black, what would my drug addiction look like? It would be twisted into something else versus 'Get back on your feet!' "
Today, we are seeing a lot more white rappers making noise in the hip hop/rap scene. To name a few, Macklemore, Lil Dickey, Mac Miller, and MGK have all been successful artists. But is it really hard to earn respect as a white rapper today? The Fader had rappers Vince Staples, African American, and Mac Miller, white, to discuss the place of a white rapper today.
"White people definitely root for white people," Vince Staples said.
" That’s a huge reason why it’s become so big right now. People are like, “Yeah! A white guy rapping! I wanna support that because not a lot of white guys rap!” I remember hearing Eminem for the first time in my kitchen: I had a really little TV that was as big as my head, and “The Real Slim Shady” was on MTV. I definitely had a moment of being a young white kid rapping every lyric in the mirror," Mac Miller responded.
"Maybe the problem is that black people don’t support each other and don’t (respect) each other as much as they should." Vince Staples said.
This was interesting to me because Vince Staples made a good point. Since the white rapper seems to be outnumbered in the hip hop scene, he often gets respect from the white community because they can identify with each other. I think Vince Staples is suggesting an African American rapper isn't so hard to come by in the Hip Hop/Rap industry, so it's harder to earn respect. So this raises the question of if white rappers really struggle for the respect from the genre as they were used to.
Sources:
http://harvardpolitics.com/books-arts/politics-race-rap/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hip_hop
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrMU9wm8hn4
http://www.thefader.com/2015/10/06/white-rappers-mac-miller-vince-staples-interview
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