On the State of Hip-Hop Today:
So, there’s a big to-do in the online community that reads the New Yorker and also likes hip-hop, all 12 of us are worked up because Sasha Frere-Jones, New Yorker staff writer, wrote that hip-hop was dead, or at least deposed from its throne as ruler of the popular music kingdom.
Some people didn’t agree, and so (nominal) rappers and fast-food connoisseurs Das Racist were asked by flavorwire to offer a rebuttal.
SASHA FRERE JONES: STOP TRYING TO KILL RAP
Although I respect their tone, and they’re very smart guys, I felt like they were overly critical of SFJ and really discarded some valid points of his about the state of hip-hop as a genre without really justifying it beyond “there’s no point in talking about this, and if there were, you wouldn’t be able to talk about it because you’re not legitimate, because you’re white.” Now, I think that’s probably true; it’s not as legitimate when SFJ says hip-hop is dead than when Nas said it in 2006, and honestly Frere-Jones is insulting in being so dismissive of that fact.
I posted this in the comments section, but thought I’d clean it up and expand upon it a little bit in this space.
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I hear what SFJ is saying – hip-hop, defined as a genre of music composed of syncopated rhythms and spoken word raps [+/- the bonethugs of the world]as epitomized by wu-tang, and nas, and snoop (pre-1996) et. al, was THE defining ‘mode’ for commercially successful/mainstream music for about 20 (i would say 15) years. And now it is not, in the same way that Big-band/swing, jazz, (what is now prefaced by ‘classic’) rock, disco, all had their own moments (of varying length) in the sun. I don’t think this is a pointless argument, nor do I think Frere-Jones fails to compellingly present it. In the mode that metal is ‘dead,’ to state one example given by SFJ. Sure, metal bands aren’t topping the charts, and you don’t often hear metal at a ‘mainsteam’ party or club or bar, or on mainstream radio, but at the same time the shit Mastodon and Between the Buried and Me, and Arsis, and Gorod, and Neuraxis have been writing and busting out have been fucking legendary, innovative, completely metal albums.
When you look at the state of ‘hip-hop’ today, OF COURSE there are still great rappers producing great songs (and funny, semi-surprisingly eloquent rappers making hilarious stoner jams about combination fastfood restaurants not present in the tonier areas of connecticut), but from my (admittedly white, middle-class, college-educated) experience, hip-hop (as textbook defined above) has ceded control of the airwaves, speaker cones, and earbuds of the mainstream for a decidedly more disco/techno/euro/whatever sound. I mean, ten years ago, ALL you heard at parties, wherever, was rap -juvenile, jay-z, wu-tang, whatever. And now, well, there’s a lot of Justice, Crookers, Lady Gaga, whatever. And just because Kid Cudi raps over a crookers banger or P.Diddles sponsors Felix Da Housecat mixtapes now doesn’t make those sounds “hip-hop.” They’re electro with someone rapping over them. There IS a difference. Would the verses of “Foe tha Love of Money” laid over an electro beat still be hip-hop? NOPE. not even close.
To conclude: could you see New York State of Mind topping the charts is it was released these days? Or blowing up in the clubs and whatnot? I mean it’s about as perfect a hip-hop song as you’ll find, but the mainstream’s tastes have changed. I doubt that matters to you (as you expressed) and nor should it. Metal heads couldn’t give a flying fuck that they don’t get airplay, and 5 years ago, pre-Cudi and pre-Cool Kids, neither did Crookers or the Bloody Beetroots. so it goes.
P.S. using Enter The Wu-Tang to justify the artistic merit of rap skits is kind of fraudulent, as the loose humor, introspection and easy rapport they have are by FAR the exception rather than the rule. You guys seriously enjoy listening to dramatic reenactments of a girl getting a cumshot in the eye (Chronic 2001.. or was it the Slim Shady LP?) or Biggie getting his dick sucked, or whatever the fuck is going on inbetween Stankonia’s tracks? Not saying skits and whatnot CAN’T be good… just that they generally aren’t, due to lack of effort. why defend that?
