So Ty, you said to come into the Hip hop thread and of of your posts in my thread really grabbed my attention;
Also it's awesome to see some more old school hip hop fans, it just seems like there is becoming less and less of us around nowadays. It's a shame really because a lot of younger kids getting into hip hop don't know about the history and the artists that broke ground for the genre. A prime example is at a house party I was talking to this guy (now I'm not being racist here, but we all know hip hop was an African American music genre first, and me being white typically your opinion counts less for some reason), but he was African American and I asked him what his favorite rappers were. He named off names such as Lil Wayne, Young Joc, etc. all the rappers that are big now. So I proceeded to ask him what about the legends like Eazy E, NWA, 2pac, Biggie, etc. And he looked at me like I was talking French. He responded with: "Well they're all good rappers, but they're not as good as Wayne or Joc are". That was telling for me, and honestly, I felt pretty old at that point in time where some younger kid is telling me Wayne and Joc are better than Poc or NWA.
It really is a shame, nobody know their history any more. I have a very similar story which I'll share very quickly;
One of my friends is black and considers himself to be a hip hop fan and apparently I know less than him because I am white. Anyway, this guy thinks he knows it all about hip hop, he got in my car the other day and I was playing Ain't No Half Steppin, and he asked who is this? I actually had to explain to him who Big Daddy Kane was, I then played him some Rakim and he said, this guys nowhere near as good as Kanye (you can imagine the look on my face). So I said, name the best 5 rappers ever then, he proceeded to say Lil' Wayne, Kanye West, Drake (YES FUCKING DRAKE), Tupac and Jay-Z. I felt like punching this moron in the face. It would be fair to say I don't to talk to him so much anymore.
It's things like this that depress me most about hip hop today, not the bad music, the mainstream sell outs or the abomination that is autotune, it's the fact that the newer/ younger fans just ignore the history. They don't take the time to listen to older hip hop before making up their minds, they just hear the new Kanye/ Wayne track and consider themselves rap fans.
Anyway, I'll just give you my hip hop background before getting into any discussion. Yes I'm 18, white and from the UK, but that in no way should stop me from being a hip hop fan, I have over 6000 hip hop songs on my itunes and always try to keep up with recent hip hop. Living in the UK, it's harder to keep up with underground/ less well known rappers, but I do my best.
My favourite rappers are Rakim, Nas, B.I.G, Big L, and Pac. I don't rate many of today's rappers, most forget where they came from and only care about getting their songs in the clubs or on people's phones. I seriously doubt hip hop will ever be as good as it was but there's still some talent out there.
My Favourite groups are NWA, Bone Thugs, Run DMC and Wu Tang.
My 5 favourite hip hop albums are;
Only Built 4 Cuban Linx - Raekwon
Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) - Wu- Tang
Reasonable Doubt - Jay-Z
Ready to Die - B.I.G
Illmatic - Nas
Obviously there are a lot more rappers and albums I like, but I don't want to bore you all with it, anyway the question I came to ask was,
Do you think Kanye West is the one of the worst things to happen to hip hop?
He never used to bother me that much when he produced or even when he dropped College Dropout & Late Registration. But West has brought so much bad to the game, he almost makes me believe at times that he is killing hip hop.
It all started with dressing 'tight', he then brought us skinny jeans, louis vuitton back packs, those sunglasses and air yeezys, but his clothing style is just the start of the problem.
No matter how you look at it, West is influencing a generation, he's started to sing, he's started to use autotune, he's trying to force young rappers like Big Sean, Kid Cudi, Drake, to all be like him, dress the same way, 'rap' the same way.
Kanye's obviously talented, I am not denying that, but he's causing a lot of damage to hip hop, young rappers don't want to tell a story of their struggles or life on streets, they want to talk about bullshit and just make hits like Kanye.
Now you can blame people like Soulja Boy all you want, but there has always been people like him and he's no major influence and has no longevity, However, West has brought us a terrible dress sense, singing in rap and autotune and he's not going away anytime soon. Young rappers aspire to be him and drop hits like him, hip hops definitely changing and Kanye has a lot to do with it.
Is Kanye West Killing hip hop?
