I saw this posted over at
www.okayplayer.com. And I felt some of it was speaking directly to me. The author of this post was lamenting how hip-hop today has to struggle to exist on its own terms. What do you think?
Here's the post:
"This is really the kinda of thinking I have been on for about the last 10 years.
people really dont like HIP HOP
They dont like all the rappin(he just a mixtape mc cant make "songs")
They dont like the sex and violence(what about the kids)
They dont respect the elders(run dmc were overrated)
They dont respect the mc(shit anybody can get outta jail and make a hit)
They dont respect the producer(all he did was speed up a chaka khan 45)
This is a HIP HOP message board and even we think HIP HIP is f***ed up.
Look at how HIP HOP is sold to us, in order to push the dope they gotta add baking soda and cut the product(R&B hooks, songs for the bitches, generic producer cuts)
The artists themselves dont really seem to have much love for what they doing(peep SLIM THUG in XXL)
We judge a successful HIP HOP album by platinum sales when you really look at it at most the HIP HOP audience is around 500,000(30 days later the lp went gold)
I remember this REDMAN post and folks had all kinda crazy ideas how to blow his new album up(LIL JOHN?? MISSY??) what I got from that is a dope mc over dope beats cant be sold at least not at the numbers folks want to be considered a success.
In 2005 you do mixtapes for the real HIP HOP fans,why?
If we are really talking about a great artform then it should be able to stand on it's on merits.
HIP HOP is supposed to be street music done by the niggas you dont like, yet them same niggas follow chase formulas worse than boy bands.
As fans all we get is niggas copping pleas.
It's bigger than JOE BUDDENS chasing after SWIZZ BEATS, I picked up that COMMON cd to peep the DVD and got footage of him and his stylist??? My nigga was clowning the shit outta me for putting that shit on in his truck. All I could think of was "who is this for"?
Before you even go there with "well you just one of those back in the day" niggas I saw this shit coming back in the day when RUN DMC sold me out with that AEROSMITH bullshit. I knew at that point HIP HOP has lost a certain edge that it would never get back.
We can try our best to defend HIP HOP but WYNTON won, he was pretty much dead on we just didnt like to hear it from a nigga like him, lol.
I got all day so bring it."