South, Exploitation, and Sport

Ahh, the South! There isn’t ANYTHING like it! I was born and raised in the South. I'm very proud of it too. Why not be? We have great tasting food, real African culture based here, humble hospitality, and oh yeah...the rap music.

Now, I have a love and hate relationship with the South's rap music industry. Why I love it? I love it because we can produce bangers. Every artist from the South can get played in every club and every radio station. We also get more deals than artist from the North.

But I must say I really hate the South's rap music industry as well.

First, majority but not all of the artists' aren't producing any message behind their lyrics therefore since artists' from the south are more nationally known then of course when rap music gets criticized then it’s based on the music that’s nationally heard. Get my drift? I hate that rap music gets a bad review because it's not that bad and there are more positive, more dope artists' out there.

Secondly, artist from the south are so thirsty for a "deal" that they don’t realize that they are being exploited when they get signed. They are being exploited by music executives who just want to make money off of our musical culture and make them look stupid. You really think they understand or care about what Future is attempting to sing about?? Therefore, they throw idiots in music videos and call it Hip Hop. A lot but not all of these idiots just happen to be from the south.

Thirdly, the younger generation catch onto this and sadly this type of Hip Hop is all they know. They know nothing of the fathers of Hip Hop. They barely know who Jay Z is. I feel like he has to fight yearly to keep his name alive and keep up with the ignorance and he has been in the industry for 20 plus years. I mean even though I was born in 91 (YES HATERS I'M A 90's baby so what?!) I'm interested enough in music to seek out where this dope shit started at and who was the first ones to do it.

But if you don’t know your history then you don’t know what the present future is supposed to be. For example, "rappers" nowadays talk nonsense. If you listened to a lot of these songs without a beat would you still think it’s "fire"?

In my opinion, true Hip Hop contains 2 types of messages behind the lyrics. One message may be the metaphors and punch lines that make you think twice and you’re like “wait did he just say that? How he’d come up with that? That’s clever!” The other message may be all those metaphors and punch lines together to come up with a message to the people, the politicians and towards other artists'. Some people view Hip Hop as a battle of who is the best lyricist meaning who can come up with the most clever lines that no one else would think of and some may view Hip Hop as way an empowering tool for the people from listening to the story within the track that relates or make you think.

Hip Hop is a sport just like basketball; Hip Hop requires strategy and mental intelligence. A few bars may appear to the public as a few words at first but the meaning and metaphors are way much more. It takes skill and hard work. It really does. "No days off" like Wale would say. It's intelligence at its best when played by great rappers. Some rappers do it for the sport and nothing more. Then some may do it for the sport and the money. Whatever they do it for is their business, what they put out is ours.

Ahh, the South. It produced me and I'm thankful for that because if it wasn’t for the South I don’t think I would've been as curious as I am about Hip Hop today.

 

Drizzy .vs. K.Dot

 

I have so much to say about these 2 guys! Like my hands are typing a million miles per min...... OK not really, but you know what I mean. This shit is just too good to NOT talk about.

Everyone knows that Kendrick called out a lot of rappers on Big Sean's Control. Oh you didn't? Well while you were busy bouncing in the club listening to Boosie and Future, the sport of Rap turned up a notch after Kendrick dropped this:

"But this is hip-hop and them niggas should know what time it is
And that goes for Jermaine Cole, Big KRIT, Wale
Pusha T, Meek Millz, A$AP Rocky, Drake
Big Sean, Jay Electron', Tyler, Mac Miller
I got love for you all but I'm tryna murder you niggas
Trying to make sure your core fans never heard of you niggas
They don't wanna hear not one more noun or verb from you niggas
What is competition? I'm trying to raise the bar high
Who tryna jump and get it? You're better off trying to skydive...”

So do you see why this is so controversial? You still don't know? Well, I'm going to tell you why. Rap is sometimes so subliminal so therefore we use our days trying to figure out who this Rapper talking to or about and this n*gga actually said it! How you call out Big Sean in HIS OWN SONG?? Smh lol... And to claim The Best Rapper Alive? Thats a very big claim to make. Titles and positions in rap are very sensitive and when someone says that then you gotta be ready for the heat to follow. Rappers are going to be dropping verses left and right. But I didn’t think it called for a verse-only response, maybe an entire album response? Wait, maybe he's referring to your entire CAREER as a RAPPER. This means that you constantly have to be on your sh*t! Ready to drop some fire at any given time. That’s hard work and I'm hoping Kendrick knew what he started upon dropping that verse. He called out some BIG names as well. Some people may view this verse as a shot taken at those rappers and it comes from a malicious place OR some people like myself may view this as a wakeup call to those Rappers to get their sh*t up. In my opinion, he was just raising the bar for Hip-Hop. Personally, Hip Hop has been thrown off balance since 2001. We need some real sh*t to balance it back out.

Now, my opinion on K.Dot: Kendrick is a very good lyricist with strong messages in every song. He not exactly "up there" yet but he's getting there. We need some more music and time out of him. With him being so new into the national spotlight he is off to a good start. His album good Kid, m.A.A.d. City was a classic. He's definitely been crowned the Golden Kid of Hip hop right now. He was raised on the West Coast under the Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog era. In addition, he's the only one gaining commercial success so far and he knows he has to come hard. His motivation: His City.

Now, Drizzy.... the man I've always had but never actually had *chills in my spine*...

Even though I'd love for Drake to have my babies, it’s time to gossip about his lyricism for a min.

Drake has drastically improved since my 1st time hearing him 2007. I was just listening to his Comeback Season joint this morning and hearing him then and now is just a major upgrade. He's getting more in tuned with himself; more comfortable. He's also becoming more aware that his bars are actual bars. He's in his prime as a writer. I think Drake originally struggled with coming to terms that he IS dope and he just may be one of the best rappers of this generation. The NWTS album was a perfect example of Drake feeling himself and he made sure we knew it as well. I think Drake is an awesome rapper because he's more of a story teller. I find myself wanting to listen to his joints because it’s obviously about something going on in his life right now. In a way, I've compare his style to Hov because Hov can drop some sh*t about his life currently and its dope. Hov's perfect example? Watch The Throne. Drake has reached a phenomenal peak in commercial success that some people just want him to fail. But we'll see.

Now this is why I put the title Drizzy .vs. K.Dot: They both boast about being the best in Rap Game. For this year, Kendrick dropped some hot subliminal sh*t. All Drake has for this year is "The Language"; it's not like "Stay Scheming" or "Lord Knows". They both are screaming that they are the best in it right now and will be forever. But I notice that both of them talk real big sh*t on records so I'm hoping they live up to it.