AFRO-PUNK

... the other Black experience

I posted this a while back you know.... so feel free to ignore it or whatever. Just making some talk you know.

So what happened to intelligent rap music anyway. While we can sit and debate on people who proved rappers had half a brain (and judging on the people I tagged it will happen.) it does seem like the idea of coming up with a smart idea that strays away from the material stuff that makes this industry sound like a bunch of well payed mongoloids, I will also state what about the hip hop that while might have been either materialist or antagonistic that actually had wit and took a level of thought. I mean you can rash for hours about how Fabolous raps about loot and shit but he does use his noodle to say it in way that make you stop dead. A year ago I mentioned how i will never buy a "King" magazine ever again. for those not in the know King is essentially Maxim for a more "Hip Hop" audience. Sure I like reading the idiot shit every once in awhile, I can't read National Geo all the time and I like seeing the new cool gear and gadgets. A year ago King's editor unleashed his rap music opinions. One was Common is washed up. Wrongo! Sure some may believe that his more recent climb to movie actor status has changed his outlook to a degree but your dealing with a guy who first album was "Can I Get A Dollar." He went from broke battle rapper to, foremost progressive MC, to still progress but enjoying fruits of his labor MC. Common name drops celebs now as much as other rappers but does that make him lame. No. He knows these people so why should he leave that out. Would Common be ashamed he know Jeremy Piven even though we all saw him in the flick, and if this is true should we feel less about Luda, Cube, Busta and countless more. The other statement made was Wayne is the best punch-line MC ever... not now but ever. I will say as much as I cant get with wayne I will say he can be nice on the mic, but to say he is the best ever means Pun, Big L, Chino, Rass Kass, Pharoe Monch and many more did not exist and consider the fact that he used (and some say he still does... COUGHDRAKECOUGH) ghost writers. Lastly I remember reading a few blogs stating that Nikki Minaj is the greatest female MC ever. Okay I have never fully listen to a song by her due to her flow grating my ears, like steel on a chesse grater. but like previous Rah Digga, Jean Grae, Invincible, I mean that is a bag of cats, you can't step on it. So why though it exists is it harder to hear. Unfortunately an old Snoop skit pops in my head "I don't wanna hear that positive black man shit, I wanna hear that gangsta shit." Is it us or is it the industry telling us this. I run down the list of intelligent MCs and there is a bunch but yet half have to dumb down to sell a record. Lil John is a college grad but you would not guess that from his jumping around.... he is rich, yet Nas is a high school dropout but his Godson joint with the notebook rhymes was like the best thing I have ever heard. Chino XL looks like a male model, rhymes like a thesaurus and is a member of Mensa... yes, MENSA. You half to be a genius to be in it, and the GZA well he sounds like a genius and thats his jump off yet how often do they get some recognition. The amount of MCs who at least sound like they put some thought into what they write sound few and far between. Numbers wise Em, Nas, Jay-Z and a few others get eclipsed by the guy who says Crack every two min. even though I love the few I mentioned I still want to hear guys who don't need gangstarism and crack as a crutch. I want more De La's and more X-clans. More Visionaries and more Chuck Ds'. While we can have some ignorance we can also have some smarts or at least a new idea and variety to the lyrics.

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yeah...this is an issue. Hip-hop has been around long enough to bite it's own tail in a way. From being a solution to gang violence to damn near being it's prime catalyst. Very strange. Think back to Chuck D's " CNN for the streets " vision of rap, and the contrast between now and then is mind blowing. Is "positive black man shit" really so bad Snoop? Would he still say that today? Pretty sure he ain't living in the same area of Long Beach that he came up in. Although I don't collect his music, whenever I come across Lupe Fiasco I'm always kind of impressed by where his head is, what he has to say...Jay Electronica is dope..the Cool Kids are kinda like a new EPMD...but again, these are kind of marginal acts in a way. They don't grip the current music culture the way something new did back then. Is it something in the consumer? Is that gangsta shit just more fun, more fulfilling...easier? If so, it's a shame.  De La Soul deserves a second listen, they put in some brain work on all their records - if the marketing machine is so powerful that it can convince us that acts like that are no longer worth a second look, shit is fucked.

 

Here is some intelligent Music for Free!http://rebelmatic1.bandcamp.com/album/embrace-the-day

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