After two raps performed for poetry readings (Q-Tip's Dance on Glass by Linus and Kanye's Heard Em Say by Jonah), it got everyone, including me, thinking what are the qualifications of being a "legit" rapper? What are you allowed to rap about?
In class today we seemed to reach an agreement that a quality rap song should have a balance of self-praise and skill. I, like many others, think all good rappers have a certain level of confidence (some more than others). The success that a rapper achieves and the duration of their career are really what allow expression of their greatness to be acceptable. For example, it would be completely blasphemous for me to write a rap right now dissing Biggie, 2Pac, Eminem, etc, and stating how great I am. That of course is an extreme case but even an amateur/starting rapper shouldn't be arrogant if they want to stay relevant in the game. Respect and paying your dues goes a long way in life and the same goes for rapping.
The most common criteria (in my opinion) when judging the legitimacy of a rapper is how they grew up. "The struggle" is an equally recurring theme in rap songs and it varies from personal stories of one's past to how one made it out successfully. Although it doesn't seem entirely fair that you have to start from the bottom (sorry I had to), you probably have a lot more stories to tell if you've come from the unstable inner cities. With all of those memories etched inside, rapping can be an extremely helpful outlet. It's not necessary to rise from the ground up, but a lot of the great ones do.
Rappers often get criticize for only doing it for the money but for me that's not a really big deal. Unless that rapper is proclaiming themself as one of the greats while displaying little-to-no skill, I have no problem with them (it's likely I haven't heard of them anyway). Like I said before, great rappers tend to (but not always) come from desolate beginnings so it makes sense that part of their desire to join the rap industry is to reach financial stability. Many them repeatedly support or show love to their hometown communities as a way to remember their roots and stay grounded.
So the next time you criticize a rapper, ask yourself: do I know enough about them to condemn them? Obviously it's perfectly okay to dislike and even hate songs but you can't fairly judge the artist without knowing their story.
In my opinion the background of the rapper and even the message of the song are smaller concerns. Rap is very much about flow, rhyming, and wordplay; most listeners won't care too much what the rapper is talking about, which is why gangster rap dominates modern music. Groups like NWA started that aggressive, catchy, wordplay heavy style of rap, and listeners got used to hearing it. Obviously meaning does matter to some extent; you can't have a truly classic song without some contemplative lyrics.
ReplyDeleteYou're right that many rappers draw on their personal experiences with crime and poverty to frame their personal mythology and to give their raps a kind of street cred, but I'd also add that rap itself--from the earliest days of the street cipher--is an extraordinarily competitive genre. The "struggle" is often an aesthetic one, the challenge of finding and conveying an individual voice amid a crowded field, and the battle rhyme is one time-honored way of doing this. If you can establish your own lyrical acumen by taking out a reigning heavyweight, there's no better way to establish yourself. Kendrick Lamar's reputation is based largely on his nuanced personal-narrative lyrics, but he's also a devastating battle rhymer--look at the stir surrounding his verse on Big Sean's "Control" from a year or so ago. He's not getting people talking about his background or his qualifications to speak on this or that subject--he's calling out, by name, all of the kings of East Coast rap and announcing his superiority in no uncertain terms (and *demonstrating* this dominance in the verse itself--a vital detail). This is a rather brash move, and he has admitted that he's taking on his idols (Jay-Z, BIG, Nas) here. But it's a move that has a long history that's unique to hip-hop culture.
ReplyDeleteEllison is "responding to" _Native Son_ in his novel, but it's not like he's calling out Richard Wright by name and taunting him as obsolete. The "anxiety of influence" is always there, and artists and writers are always responding indirectly if not directly to what came before them. But in rap this process is uniquely explicit (in many senses of the word).
I think this is really pertinent to the discussion we had today in class. Sorry Juniors, but it really was mind-blowing. I think that at the end of the day I realized that rap is a very complex art-form. It encompasses a lot of the daily nuances of life, one's background, the intended message, the rhymes, the meter and the beat. In response to Louis, I think a lot of listeners do care about what the rapper has to say. In fact, one of the main reasons I love Eminem is because of the word choice he has in his raps (Real Slim Shady, My Name Is). A rapper's words and message are just as important as any other aspect.
ReplyDeleteComing from someone not in your class, its pretty cool to read this (especially since no one in our class has rapped a rap). To me the most important of a good rapper is the the quality of their skills, as Louis said. Though, what really makes a great album or track is the meaning and the lyrics. It's just so hard to listen to 45 minutes of Kanye blabbing about how great he is or someone else talking about hard they party. It really is the message can make an album so much better, and as everyone knows, if you can make great albums, you must be a great artist. So to conclude, I think what really separates the Great from the Good is the message.
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