It's such a good time in rap music right now but it kind of always is
This is super unfocused because I wrote it over the course of a long while but Things Kept Happening so I had to keep putting pen to paper.
As of late something that's been on my mind is honoring the artist's intent. Tyler, the Creator just dropped his new album on a Monday at 6am. Which is super out there. In a world where music is always dropping on Friday to capitalize on streaming numbers, it’s a breath of fresh air to have someone so prominent in the game come out and say fuck that. He’s doing it his way. Which, at the expense of sounding like I’m doing tricks on it, is so Tyler.
Streaming really fucked the game up, it supercharged the commodification of the artform which I love so much. Dude you don’t even need to care about rap music to be a rapper anymore. You know how fucked up that is? In no other genre can you just pull up and be loud and proud about how you don’t really care about the music. Rap has become something you can do and people wear the facade of a rapper and parade around black music and aesthetics without having to contend with any of the responsibility or baggage that comes with it. Jesus fucking christ I hate Lil Mabu man, somebody needs to handle that guy. I debated keeping names out of it but my blood started to boil just thinking about that shit just now. I don't think that many people even know who that guy is but he's really everything that's wrong with the game.
This ties back to Tyler because he called out this exact thing not too long ago and caught a bunch of flack for it. Some of it is a little justified because Tyler did have a little stint where he decided he was too good for rap, so he was not a person that people wanted to hear that from. Granted that was a long time ago and it also doesn't mean the point isn't valid. Drake got aired out on the Lord's internet earlier this year and for most of the 2010s for being a culture vulture and that guy is at least half black. There's white kids pretending to be gang members talking about sending people to kill their opps, that are way more egregious than that. But I guess “It’s tough bro” so that doesnt matter. And you know what, it is kinda tough! I’m not gonna sit here and lie, this mf Ian said “really, it's very simple /
I call it the make-no-money disease and buddy got every symptom”. Son, that is hilarious. The jury is still out on whether he’s cosplaying or paying tribute but to be honest I don’t have much interest in keeping up with the result. That white boy made an alright couple of songs and that's as much as I care to know.
Man, I love rap music. With all my heart, like I really love this shit. I have for as long as I've been able to understand it. So seeing it get disrespected like it does sits so poorly with me. This is the music of our struggle man. It’s our plight put into a form palatable that it makes people listen. It's expression. So watching it become the new pop music has been in some ways gratifying but in other ways harrowing. It feels not taken seriously. I know that it’s like, “Oh who cares about the Grammys?”, but shit man. I care! Not about the awards specifically but what they represent. In one hundred years people won't have access to these blogs or articles talking about real shit they’ll only be aware of this ancient music by virtue of its accolades. ‘Honor killed the Samurai’ is one of my favorite albums ever and does that matter to anyone? In a decade's time will anyone even remember it? Will people bring it up in conversations? Hip-hop doesn't even have a hall of fame! Jay-Z has his name in the rock and roll hall of fame because there are no accolades in rap music that are represented by these big institutions that do have the staying power to make something a relevant piece of history. And maybe I’m the fucking idiot because I care about that kind of thing. I don’t know.
While I’m being a downer.
Rest In Peace to Ka.
One of the best to ever do it. I mentioned before that I’ve always liked rap since I understood it. Which took some time you know? I got really into rap music in like 2009. By listening to Hieroglyphics, A Tribe called Quest and Wu-Tang albums. And I found out about those because it was an OG of mine who told me those guys were ill. I spent a lot of time just listening to stuff other people were listening to. One of the first “underground” artists I found via recommendation was Ka. Man. What a fucking artist dude. Honor Killed the Samurai was one of the first albums I ever saved on Spotify. Not that that really does anything but I have this core memory of doing that and itself is significant. When I went back to listen to the album after hearing about his passing it was still saved. It’s kind of stupid but I got really emotional about that. There it is, you know? It’s proof. A mark, that's gonna be there as long as the service is. Something (at least relatively) permanent. Ah, is that so much to ask for? Fuck man.
I’ll attach a playlist of some songs I like to this.
Speaking of which, I’ll try to end this on a positive note because I kind of spiraled up there, haha. Earl sweatshirt is another one of my favorite rappers and it's so cool to see him continue to be relevant in the game. 10+ years in the game and he's still dropping hot new verses, not an easy thing to do. He also hangs around/ shouts out a bunch of smaller scale rappers and that's so sick. He's really an artist’s artist.
He also went on an interview a few years ago with some qualms about the streaming era and how playlists have warped peoples experience with the album. I stopped listening to playlists as much and try to really just go through albums. Somebody poured over that track list, it's those songs and in that order! You owe it to them to follow through on that vision. As a consumer the price of this shit is usually free.99 you can at least pay the artist's vision respect. It's been nice getting to know an album better and grow with it. Again some artists grow with you and some music grows with you. The first time I listened to Blonde it was a stunning experience but with the passing years and the more life I live, man that shit ages like a beautiful wine. There's also some fun in familiarizing yourself with the album cuts and not just the singles. There's some bangers there man that's how you get credit with the real heads. Everyone has heard sicko mode but not enough people talk about RIP Screw or Astrothunder for me. Bro Coffee Bean is one of my favorite Travis Scott songs but since it's the outro I feel like most people don't even get that far.
Of course sometimes the singles really are the standouts. But you can form a different relationship with them. Now you're more aware of when in the track list it plays and it becomes a treat. You start to pay more attention to the song before the one that's your favorite and the one after it. There's some pretty goated three track runs out there for you to hear if you go through the whole jawn. So big shout outs to Earl man.
Rap can also just be fun, that's the beauty of it right? It's the language of our struggle but also our triumph. Because it's ours, we get to define it. And it's fine that it exists sort of paradoxically because that's what life is like. Yeah drill music is kinda factually a dangerous for kids to be participating in, but they also really like it man. Let them have their fun! In all my years running program at an after-school, some of the most fun I've ever seen a group of five teenagers have is get on a cracked copy of FL Studio and start freestyling over Sleepy Hollow/Sheff G type beats, making their voices go as deep as they could muster because they all loved Pop Smoke. Same thing we used to do over the grindin’ beat at the lunch table, just a little more high-tech. The kids are alright. They always are no matter how much the older generation frets over them.
The Tyler album is good by the way. I'm still kinda mulling it over but as of right now, I think it's pretty sick. Lots of revelations about Tyler himself and while this is the first time in a long time it feels like Tyler hasn't evolved as an artist across album releases this is certainly an evolution in Tyler the person. Which is dope. Plenty of people have drawn up this analysis but it's really cool to have an artist grow up with you like Tyler has with so many of his fans. Even if you're a “newer” Tyler fan (Flower Boy came out 7 years ago) you still got to be a part of the ride. And this weird fucking guy is one of the biggest artists on the planet man. If I started talking about how much that shit meant to me man…. I legitimately don't have the words.
The album is frantic, honest and absolutely huge. But also it manages to make so many moments feel furtive and intimate there's so many points on the album where Tyler hushes his rapping to a whisper. I had no idea who Jane was. Now I do know who she is and that her name is definitely not Jane lmao. The sonic landscape is super wide and even in the tracks that don't feel like they could be performed by a big band the drums he puts in there are insane. The constant militaristic trot on the first track backing up the choir of harmonies that lift you up into just the grimiest fucking fill that punctuates the back. Half of the track when Tyler comes in and starts to really rap. Fuck man it's such a journey to go on and that's just 2 and a half minutes into 53 minute runtime. This is absolutely a monster of an album full of wonder, invention and surprises. To describe something like that and come to the conclusion that it's not even a particularly major entry into an artist's discography… Shit man that's an auteur we're dealing with. Shit like this just reminded me of why I really, really do love the genre. Not that I had forgotten but sometimes she has to say I love you to get you to say it back, y’know?
