Let me start out by saying that I love vapid party rap as much as any 16 year-old kid on his first of many Mac Dre kicks. That is to say that Thizz Entertainment has sound tracked many of my more ‘stewie’ nights. Anyone who doubts my veracity need only glance at my iTunes “Top 25 Most Played” playlist, on which you’ll find a number of party rap staples, among a number of other lesser known but still totally hittin’ odes to hedonism, a brand of hip hop which in a rather lamentable turn of events has all but erased the once stalwart subgenre that was socially conscious rap.
Sure, you’ve got your Kendrick Lamars and Ab-Souls of the world, but they aren’t selling out arenas a la Jeezy and Weezy, nor will they ever. Conscious rap is over. A Tribe Called Quest would never flourish in today’s market. De La Soul, on the other hand, would quite literally be laughed out of any record company’s offices what with that silly debut album predicated on peace and harmony they did.
In any case, there's been a pretty remarkable paradigm shift.
Sure, you’ve got your Kendrick Lamars and Ab-Souls of the world, but they aren’t selling out arenas a la Jeezy and Weezy, nor will they ever. Conscious rap is over. A Tribe Called Quest would never flourish in today’s market. De La Soul, on the other hand, would quite literally be laughed out of any record company’s offices what with that silly debut album predicated on peace and harmony they did.
In any case, there's been a pretty remarkable paradigm shift.
When exactly it occurred, is still up for debate. Mapping the etymology of party rap’s chart topping dominance is no easy exercise. You could try to pin it all on a millennial cash money roster that bore Lil’ Wayne, but that wouldn’t be fair to 2 Live crew and their ilk, guys who, for all intents and purposes, invented party rap as we know it.
At any rate, these days it’s acts like Rostrum Records’ Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller that determine the proclivities of youth. The kids, and I use the term loosely here, can’t seem to get enough Rostrum. Perhaps it’s because they see in Rostrum a sort of self-affirming simulacrum. Never mind that Mac Miller’s only credo seems to be ‘smoking weed and eating yogurt.’ Then again, apathy has always reigned supreme for Generation Y, and so it should come as no surprise that it has so quickly embraced his brand of hip hop.
Time will tell what effects this kind of music will have on a swath of disillusioned young people who already smoke entirely too much pot without any prodding from the likes of Mac and Wiz. It doesn’t look good.
At any rate, these days it’s acts like Rostrum Records’ Wiz Khalifa and Mac Miller that determine the proclivities of youth. The kids, and I use the term loosely here, can’t seem to get enough Rostrum. Perhaps it’s because they see in Rostrum a sort of self-affirming simulacrum. Never mind that Mac Miller’s only credo seems to be ‘smoking weed and eating yogurt.’ Then again, apathy has always reigned supreme for Generation Y, and so it should come as no surprise that it has so quickly embraced his brand of hip hop.
Time will tell what effects this kind of music will have on a swath of disillusioned young people who already smoke entirely too much pot without any prodding from the likes of Mac and Wiz. It doesn’t look good.
Is it a little hyperbolic to equate a generation’s taste in music with its prospects for success? Probably. But the profusion of epicurean-inspired drug poems I hear on the radio has me worried. I just so happen to loathe political hip-hop with the kind of fervor usually reserved for brutal despots, but how about a little message driven rap every once in a while, industry? What say you?
No comments:
Post a Comment