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As with a lot of my posts, this rant is kind of inspired by Erykah Badu.  She basically says that rappers should be ashamed of themselves for making poppy music, and selling out to corporate America.  One thing that has started to get on my nerves, is when people try to distinguish between what is “real” hip-hop, and what isn’t.

Now I get what Erykah’s point is.  I’m not mad at her opinion.  Hip-Hop is becoming highly corporate, but I feel like that is an inevitability considering where the music business is at.  Since THE FANS are refusing to pay for music, we can’t get mad when artists try to sell products that people actually pay for.  This is the game in 2010.  And until consumers of music are willing to pay for music again, this is a phenomena that we are going to be living with.  Deal with it.  It’s going to be hard for your favorite artist to turn down a check from a corporate entity when they aren’t seeing similar checks from their record label.

Another one of Erykah’s complaints that I have heard numerous times is that the hip-hop with heavy electronic/synthy beats is some how not valid.  Now that is just retarded.  Has anyone ever heard of this rapper, his name was Afrika Bambaataa.  He was kind of sort of a hip-hop pioneer.  Have you heard his production?  So anyone who says electronic music isn’t hip-hop needs to kill that noise on the quick.  The whole irony is that when hip-hop first came out, a lot of music people didn’t want to acknowledge it as a legitimate genre of music.  So when a bunch of old head music industry people (no shots) start saying some thing isn’t “real”.  Then guess what?  It is probably very very real.

It’s actually part of a greater issue that I have noticed.  There is just a generational shift going on in hip-hop.  People have a tendency to be scared of what they don’t understand.  When it comes to hip-hop the business, the music, and the culture are all changing.  There are a lot of older people in this industry, and while I have tons of respect for them, they don’t understand the changes that are occuring.  Since they don’t understand it it, they decide to label it as un valid.  This is a monumental and frequent mistake that is being made in the culture right now.  I feel like for the most part the average 16 year old hip-hop fan is going to identify with artists like Wiz Khalifa, Kid CuDi & Chiddy Bang as opposed to some artist on that lyrical boom-bap tip.  This is just part of the evolution of the genre.  There comes a point in every genre where a younger generation segways out from what the older people think is cool.  I think it’s very normal for a 16 year old kid to look at some older dude with baggy jeans and a North Face listening to some boom bap type sh*t and think he is corny.  That’s what young people do.  They create identities for themselves, and nothing makes a young person happier with their identity than when older poeople sh*t on it.

Finally I define “real” hip-hop as the music that people care about.  Not the music that taste makers from 1999 would approve off.  Soulja Boy is kind a perfect example.  People like to throw that kid under the bus for a bevy of legitimate reasons.  His music is poppy.  He is a lame.  He got tooled on by Kat Stacks.  Well you know what is real?  His 2.5 million twitter followers.  That 6 million he made this year?  Well that seems very real to me.  I just find it funny when some of these artists get labeled some sort of lyrical master on a blog site, but can’t get 20 people to show up to see them live.  What’s “real” about that?  I’m not sitting here saying that Soulja Boy is some sort of a musical revolutionary.  I’m just saying no one has the right to invalidate his music, when clearly so many people identify with it.  The question of what “real” hip-hop is definitely too complicated of a question to properly answer.  However, maybe the question we should be asking is if *insert artists name* has fans in REAL LIFE!  Because if there is one thing I have learned it’s that the artists who have the people, have the power.  If a critic defines their music as “real” or not is irrelevant.