"You know in more than one way cocaine numbs the brain/All I did was think about how the funds once came. Then I ran across this memory and it stung the brain/How can you ever destroy the beauty from which one came. That's a savage, you're the reason why me and these beats make a marriage/why I rhyme above average and I ain't sh*t. Glad you got yourself together no thanks to me/Strong and beautiful the way thangs should be/You must love me." - Jay-ZWhen Jay-Z rapped about love on his 1997 song "You Must Love Me." He was talking about the kind of unconditional love only a mother, brother or girlfriend can offer a person who's doing wrong and knows it, but can't stay away from hustling.
Fast forward to today. Hov feels like the rap game is in a similar situation. A lot of rappers are just following trends. Making ring tone garbage most people won't remember ten years from now. With only a handful of artists still working hard to not just sell records for right now, but also doing their best to make songs that will stand the test of time.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Jigga talked about what the rap game's been missing.
"For us, this is the music that saved a generation. So there's a big responsibility for those who it saved to make sure that thing is intact for the next generation. We're the first generation that really took advantage of it, starting with Puff [Daddy] and Master P, guys who really made a name and became successful as entrepreneurs,
Even more than that, when you're under attack so much as a genre [as hip hop is], you're forced to come together. But probably the last time we really came together on something was working for Obama, lending our voice and the people we had toward that campaign. Whether he does a great job or not is almost secondary to what it did for the dreams and the hopes of an entire race. Just based on that alone, it's a success, the biggest we've had. Period. To date. It's Martin Luther King's dream realized. Tangible. In the flesh. You can shake his hand.
We have to find our way back to true emotion. This is going to sound so sappy, but love is the only thing that stands the test of time. "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill" was all about love. Andre 3000, "The Love Below." Even NWA, at its core, that was about love for a neighborhood.
We're chasing a lot of sounds now, but I'm not hearing anyone's real voice. The emotion of where you are in your life. The mortgage scandal. People losing their jobs. I want to hear about that."
Hip Hop is definitely not dead, even though Nas tried to bury it several years ago. It just needs a shot in the arm to get it going back in the right direction again.
}
Comments