Entertainment

A Stranger in a Strange Land A Stranger in a Strange Land

ONE 90’S KID QUEST FOR MORE MEANINGFUL HIP-HOP A s a rural white youth, the current disarray of modern hip-hop chills me to my very core. My Tupac and Del The Funky Homosapien CDs have long worn thin and if they go out, I don’t know what will become of me. More than likely, my rhythm will shrink to such a miniscule size that I will find it hard to Duggy out of bed in the morning.

The gradual degradation of lyricism and urban-spunk has left me feeling isolated from the increasingly beatheavy leanings of modern rap. The problem may not so much lie in that I am holding on to the music of my adopted youth, but instead, was the music never intended for my ears in the first place? Am I remiss to feel like a savior has yet to lead the 90s-esque rap resurgence? Or am I but a fool to think that I deserve the very music I still cherish in the first place, after all, Wu-Tang is for the children.

Before Atlanta became the undisputed Mecca of trap music, before Riff Raff stole America’s soul with simile, before Lil Uzi Vert did whatever it is that he does, there was the great bi-coastal war. The east coast, west coast bad blood was the stuff of VH1 re-run lore and is one of the most decisive eras in the history of music.

The ‘war’, which did ultimately see casualties on both sides, is largely credited as starting after the unsolved non-fatal shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. Tupac blamed the assault on his then-friend The Notorious B.I.G, a.k.a Biggie Smalls, and the two rappers parted ways to cultivate the breeding ground for diss tracks against their newfound enemies. Although there is some speculation that the beef was trumped up to sell records, the public and news organizations ran amuck amidst the bloodshed.

This conflict was not noted to show that modern rappers are soft, because they most certainly are not, but it shows that the golden era of heated, seething, limerick rap has seemingly passed us. Out of this deep-rooted era of gangster rap came scores of golden records that have stood the test of time. It was the peak of the craft and expectedly, some of us think it’s only gone downhill from there.

To be fair, the same can be said about the peak of metal music, for example, during the same timeframe. Sounds change, what was cool back then needs a tune up every once and a while. Even so, you can’t help but feel that there was something in the cosmos that gave us all those once-inan-eon artists during the same decade. There are, however, glimmers of hope for us looking in the right places for an intrepid savior upon the hiphop Mount Olympus. Mainstream millennial wordsmiths like Chance The Rapper, Childish Gambino and Kendrick Lamar, to name a few, have shown us that there is a beacon of light yet to be seen from the fading stars of old.

Hip-hop is inherently about movement and that is best shown through the poetry of verse. It is about uniting the masses against a common enemy, addressing cultural issues, or just flat out making some shorties drop it low for the cause. These merits can still be seen in the blessed few who carry the torch, but the offbranches of the modern craft have sullied the pot for many fans.

While it is unfair to say that there is no legible modern rap music, it is reasonable to assume that certain genres aren’t for everyone and their creators probably prefer it that way. If lyricists like Nas or Big L were the subject of an academic analysis, then trap music would certainly be the antithesis.

Trap was born in the heart of Atlanta in this same timeframe, but the style that we have come to associate with it didn’t come fruition until artists like Three 6 Mafia and Gucci Mane took the reins. The movement has since branched out to feature artists from around the globe, but to the founding trap fathers, it will always remain uniquely Georgian.

Intrinsically, trap rap serves its purpose and makes people happy, which is all you can ask for in an expression. But at its core, it largely comes off as braggard music that combines simple rhymes with a hard baseline. It’s easy to claim that this is what most hip-hop is at its most primal incarnation anyways, but that doesn’t mean it has to be that way.

So, who are the voices of our generation? Where are the de facto leaders of their republics?

It’s simple, they’re with their fans. They’re selling out arenas all over the world to crowds of people who they’ve spoken to, just like the greats we may put on a pedestal. It’s next to impossible to keep up with all the new music being released on the myriad of streaming services, so these people are already out there. We just may not have found our prophets yet. When searching for answers in the whirlwind of different sects of crunkcore, trip hop, horrorcore, and ghetto house, it’s hard to know where it all went wrong. Maybe the answer is that it ultimately didn’t.

Music is palatable to people in every niche on earth because it is ever-changing in serving as a form of expression for the artists themselves. Then, one degree away, the fans become inspired by it.

Perhaps this is no different than your mom changing the radio station when Ozzy Osbourne came on while you were young. While you may have wanted to ride the crazy train and explore what this new and exciting sound meant to you, someone from a different era was there to tell you that it’s the sacrilegious path.

If only you’d heard the music back in my day. By. Casey Rohlen