Adam:

While I find your interest and appreciation of older forms of hip-hop commendable, given the proliferation of pop rap that many people like you and I have gripes with, your article, admittedly, takes a very narrow approach in assessing the innovation and creativity (or lack thereof) in hip-hop nowadays. There were several claims that, while bold and opinionated, I find fault with, so I’ll address them in the following few paragraphs.

“Modern rappers do not know what it means to produce a true and authentic piece of music”: This quote illustrates my central problem—why have you grouped all rappers in the same boat? Simply because an artist has gone “mainstream” and is selling millions of records does not mean such an artist speaks for the entire genre—in fact, I’d argue that a great deal of underground, lesser known artists are the ones who usually produce the most critically acclaimed records which oftentimes grow in popularity as time goes on. Is your statement attempting to accuse artists of losing their authenticity once they have gone platinum? If this is the case, I can certainly see where you are coming from.

“According to present day standards……….creativity”: Yes, music as a whole is incredibly saturated. Since soundcloud and youtube is filled with swarms of millions of independent musicians, this has led to an unprecedented volume of music available. That being said, in terms of quality, I really don’t know if there was any bit of a drop-off at the dawn of the Internet Age—music listeners as a whole tend to idealize music of the past since only the albums which stood the test of time are heard today. Granted, those records are few and far between. But go to any record store and look at the used bin—in there, you will find thousands and thousands of forgotten records no one cares about because they didn’t stand the test of time. In essence, it’s the physical manifestation of what we have now on soundcloud. Now, in response to your comment about trends and how rap success is measured, just because some amateurs posted something on youtube, in the vein of a “Mos Def,” as you mentioned, that does not weaken the rap game whatsoever because these “Dr. Dre’s” are not actually going anywhere with their “talent.” And if they end up with a record deal, I can guarantee they will not be remembered twenty years from now. So, essentially, what I’m saying is, why should I care about the amateurs on youtube when there’s tons of good rap music out there right now which is innovative and meaningful, outside of the mainstream?

Which brings me to my next point, Adam. When you opined about the sub-par quality of beats and lyricism, I couldn’t help but wonder if you considered the vast world of underground hip hop. Let’s be frank…….the mainstream is never, in any field of study, by any stretch of the imagination, the place where innovation and meaningfulness are bred. The mainstream thrives on fads and interests which have already existed independently for years before. As you know, hip hop started in the late 70’s and only really took off into the mainstream in the late 90’s—but again, let’s not romanticize the 90’s. At the same time Public Enemy was dropping Fear of a Black Planet, we had MC Hammer.

Granted, Adam, I agree with you to a certain extent. I don’t like pop rap by any measure—like you, I think it is often very insipid, meaningless, and derivative…..but at the same time, I can’t really say I care. A few years ago, I had that mentality as well—that modern hip-hop does not hold a candle to the older stuff……….and then I heard J Dilla, Madlib, Kendrick Lamar, Run The Jewels, MF Doom, Chance, etc. etc.

So I guess my question is…….how can rappers like Lil Wayne be ruining hip hop forever? To paraphrase the great Anthony Fantano (also posted below), hip hop has been around for long enough, and it has grown so considerably that this league of “sub-par rappers” cannot possibly reverse the 30+ years of hip hop’s growth, artistry, and innovation. Essentially, to say that Chief Keef is tarnishing Paul’s Boutique and Illmatic in one clean sweep with every new release would thus be laughably untrue. Furthermore, all the great artists you mentioned have become great over the course of time, and we, twenty years later, have a somewhat biased view of their music. Take The Low End Theory for example. I think it’s one of the greatest hip hop records of all time. Now……..if it were released today, I don’t know if I would think that. Sure, I’d love it instantly and enjoy it much the same way as I do now, but one can’t really judge an album’s greatness or an artist’s greatness until their influence has been felt by musicians and the music community. So, it’s very difficult to assess the legacy of an artist when they haven’t been around long enough to truly stand the test of time.

Overall, I simply found your points bolder than the evidence to support them. Yes, the 1980s and 1990s were the biggest time of innovation for hip hop, but that is simply because those were the decades of the gestation of the genre itself. It only makes sense that works released during that time had the biggest impact on hip hop forever. Who knows, perhaps To Pmp a Butterfly is our generation’s Illmatic. That sounds like an absurdly bold statement, but that’s only because Butterfly has just been released…..only time will tell.

Finally, if your primary concern for disillusionment is in the fact that the vast majority of innovative and “true” artists do not get the recognition they deserve, I completely agree with you. There are only a small handful of artists, in the history of recorded music, who have achieved both artistic and commercial success concurrently, so I can certainly understand your despair. That being said, you and I should probably accept this and move on, because it has been like this for a long time and I don’t foresee a time where this changes…….unless if the Western world has some sort of massive cultural renaissance. Admittedly, this paradigm is seen in pretty much every artistic field—this is precisely the reason Michael Bay is a millionaire. Thankfully though, for films, there is the Oscars, which, at least in comparison to the Grammys, gives artistic recognition to films like Boyhood, regardless of commercial success. Clearly the Grammys goes about this business in much the opposite way.

So is there hope for the independent musicians and record labels that focus primarily on innovation and artistry? I think the fact that we can debate this topic with an assertion of its relevancy proves that there is enough of an audience for this standard of hip hop to stay alive. True, we are the minority, but that’s the only way it can exist, since innovative music requires dissection, analysis, and some prior knowledge of music history on the part of the listener. As elitist as that sounds, most people do not have the patience or time for that, so naturally, record companies created pop music for these same people. People like you and I devote large parts of our lives to music and that is why we care so much about it, and it kills us that other people would rather listen to Lil Wayne.

It’s unfortunate, but we can only deal with it. Hip hop is a fantastic type of music, and those who have respect for the genre will understand the difference. Sadly, hip hop did go too commercial, and because of this, there are millions of people who think of hip hop as senseless noise which only glorifies violence, drug abuse, greed, and promiscuous women. Thankfully, though, there are tons of people who believe in the progress and meaning of hip hop, and it is these people who keep the genre’s history relevant and its progress alive.

Frankly, Kendrick Lamar could not have come at a better time…………he is a true artist. And everyone likes him. People like him only come around once or twice every twenty years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNJVP7FBjCY (Mr. Anthony Fantano addressing this same issue)