Game Over

The only thing in our society that is more played out than the Game's bitchassness is the phrase "played out". I mean really, who has enough discretionary income to throw away $12 in this Great Recession on a Game album? How many banal references to 64' Impalas, name-drops, and faux beef can one fan stomach in a lifetime? Unfortunately, this utterly untalented scourge of rap is a vestige of Dr. Dre and 50 Cent's gimmick to revive the West Coast rap scene, and it has endured long enough!

And if it wasn't enough that I had to bear years of impressionable Game acolytes poorly defend this guy, now he commits the most egregious form of rap sacrilege by taking shots at Jay-Z to boost his upcoming album sales. By now, most readers(which doesn't appear to be many yet by the blog counter) have perceived my professional bias to Sean Carter. You've also probably determined that this entry is a personal rant that never formally develops a point. OK, you got me. Bottom line...f@%& Jayceon Taylor! When will we raise our musical standards? Where do we draw the line with these rappers who have pasts and presents that contradict their gangster posturing? Let the photo serve as my conclusion.

The Drake Theory

One can argue, with much persuasion, that mentioning today's hip-hop along with the word originality is oxymoronic. What is probably universally conceded is the fact that where once rap artists wedded borrowed beats, melodies, instrumental, etc. to create their own distinctive style of rap, now the game has become so stylistically and lyrically impoverished that artists resort to borrowing other artists' entire persona.

Tragically, this reality commonly goes unaddressed by today's generation of hip-hop heads who are either oblivious to these unabashed swagger-jackers or are completely apathetic. Like so many others who have recently been swept up in the fanfare of Jimmy Brooks, AKA Drake, I've been trying to figure out just why I like the guy so much. Being the staunch critic of contemporary rap that I am, I consider this my disgraceful mea culpa. After much reflection, I stunningly arrived at the reason...Drake is a carbon copy of Phonte; one of my favorite artists.

Sadly, the aforementioned name isn't household enough for most people's lightbulb to instantly flick on without further elaboration. He is the frontman for the highly under glorified North Carolina rap duo, Little Brother. From his voice's pitch, to his delivery, down to his simplistic but defining ad lib "yeah" that is interspersed throughout his flow, Drake has mastered them all. To be clear, the point of this expose is not an attempt to discredit or defame the former Degrassi thespian, because despite his apparent creative deficit, I really like his material (perhaps because I like the bitee). Drake is merely the segway to an even greater truth. What I do want to get off my chest is only related to what just came off my chest, and that is how much of a shame it is that hip-hop's greatest talents invariably wither in obscurity, while their drones along with ringtone rappers flourish under the limelight.

What this is, is an indictment of the crowd-mindedness of hip-hop's fan base. I always knew rap wasn't a merit-based industry, but today's fans only listen to the music that is forced down their eardrum via television and radio. Had Little Brother or countless other hapless, obscure talents been endorsed by an artist as popular as Little Wayne, then their lack of popularity and commercial success wouldn't be reality.

Is the South the Epicenter of Coonery?

Hip hop has its origins in Bronx, NY during the early 1980's, where it was birthed by a generation of African-American youth who were rebelling against the musical status quo. The fever of the disco culture held no relevance to Black youth, who were alienated by music which failed to recognize the realities of the Black experience. Primary amongst the many elements that fueled this movement were the spirit of independent expression and social consciousness that were principle to this new thing called "rap music". How, then, has this movement shifted its centrality to the South and (de)evolved into music predominantly characterized by the absence of creativity, lack of social commentary, and downright coonery?

The urban dictionary defines coonery as: antics and behavior displayed by certain underclass individuals in the Black culture, the end result being the embarrassment of the rest of the upstanding Black community. For clarification, some common examples of this are readily displayed daily on the BET network via reality shows, music videos, and sometimes even Bobby Jones' gospel. Contrary to the sentiment shared by most sympathizers of the new era of hip-hop, I do not reject it because I am "hating" (the perennial scapegoat for good criticism), but because it is misogynistic, morally vacant, and depictive of hyper sexuality that borders the perverse. This indictment surely doesn't apply to all Southern rappers, but sadly I could list the exceptions with less than ten fingers.

Is this negative evaluation of the state of hip-hop simply the product of rap's first generational shift? After all, we all have personal experience of the rift between parents and their children regarding the quality of music. Is this minstrel-like music endemic to the South or is this criticism the result of jealousy over the region's current commercial domination of the genre? The biggest tragedy, perhaps, is that with the knowledge that commercial success in rap now depends on the Southern model, most Northern rappers have capitulated to these pressures and are abandoning their own creativity; see Fabolous and Fat Joe. Even Jay-Z conceded in the prelude on the Kingdom Come album that he "would write it" if people "would buy it".

While it's true that you can't argue one's tastes, there is nothing to argue concerning the dance-crazed, lyrically impoverished music that seems to have its stronghold in the South (Atlanta*clearing my throat). With the exception of Jerry Springer, White people don't give their White trash a stage to perpetuate negative stereotypes, so why do we Black people insist on giving the niggers the strongest voice among us?