Old Los Angeles rap is better than new Los Angeles rap (to live, gangs)

[afropack-man]

Originally Posted by theraven24

True, but songs like "Complexion" don't always get a lot of airtime on the radio.

Mainstream rap, overall, is trash.

Yes, you are right songs like complexion will probably never see the limelight. Although "Alright" did see time on the radio which was basically a protest anthem.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3rDc7sL0Co


I can pretty much agree that radio rap/Maintream rap sucks these days but songs on the radio have always sucked. 2pac was around the same time as Vanilla Ice. I'm never gonna count people out just because they want to dance.

All I'm really saying is that there is enough hip hop that fits all needs. The radio is never going to be the barometer for success. If that were the case Iggy Azalea would be more respected than she is.

[jm1982]

It's kind of funny when people say that certain music was better in the past .
I heard this most about rock music . " they don't make it like they used to in the 60s"

Truth is there was probably a ton of crap back then but it didn't last and people forgot it. We only remember the hits and the superstars

How many crap rock bands out out albums for every Led Zeppelin ?

It is possible there is more crap out there today though since it's easier and cheaper to get an album out .
There is just a lot more content overall.
Before people have a handful of tv stations . Now it's hundreds of them many more shows etc

[afropack-man]

Originally Posted by theraven24

True, but songs like "Complexion" don't always get a lot of airtime on the radio.

Mainstream rap, overall, is trash.

I have to point another Los Angeles artist. YG can make a song like Why You Always Hatin which will make the radio.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1CLmap_CVU



But Blacks And Browns doesn't? I get it because nobody wants to dance to Blacks and Browns in a Club but we have our priorities messed up.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OnctuZ7ye4

[afropack-man]

Originally Posted by jm1982

It's kind of funny when people say that certain music was better in the past .
I heard this most about rock music . " they don't make it like they used to in the 60s"

Truth is there was probably a ton of crap back then but it didn't last and people forgot it. We only remember the hits and the superstars

How many crap rock bands out out albums for every Led Zeppelin ?

It is possible there is more crap out there today though since it's easier and cheaper to get an album out .
There is just a lot more content overall.
Before people have a handful of tv stations . Now it's hundreds of them many more shows etc

Good summary you are very right.

[theraven24]

Originally Posted by afropack-man

Yes, you are right songs like complexion will probably never see the limelight. Although "Alright" did see time on the radio which was basically a protest anthem.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3rDc7sL0Co


I can pretty much agree that radio rap/Maintream rap sucks these days but songs on the radio have always sucked. 2pac was around the same time as Vanilla Ice. I'm never gonna count people out just because they want to dance.

All I'm really saying is that there is enough hip hop that fits all needs. The radio is never going to be the barometer for success. If that were the case Iggy Azalea would be more respected than she is.

True, and I don't think anyone truly took Vanilla Ice seriously. In saying that, it can't be denied there were far more talented mainstream rappers back in the 90's. 2Pac, Biggie, Nas, Ice Cube, Bone Thugs, Wu Tang, etc. were all talented and their music was on the radio.

Iggy Azalea is the epitome of cultural appropriation. She creates this fake Black accent to sound hood when she raps, and she's still terrible. She puts on a front to sell Black music. She exploits it.

[ThaBigHomieGucci]

Somewhere, sometime, long ago a large group of hip hop fans got this idea
1. Rap was a smart intellectual artform filled with modern day street Socrates' until suddenly it became 2000 (or 02 or 05 or 07 or 2010 or whenever the listener chooses) and then it suddenly became about money,drugs and women
2. Old school Hip Hop has no faults and it was 'REAL HIP HOP!!!!1!!!'
Im a black man who grew up in Paramount,CA in the 90s, I was 15 when Straight Outta Compton came out ("Omg thats my favorite record!!! oh yeah i didnt know who they were before i saw the movie but they were REAL not like TODAYZ CRAP RAPPERS!!!") I bought it on cassette in 1988 and I have CDs and cassettes from NWA through DJ Quik, Snoop, Dogg Pound, Cube, Dre, etc the last one I bought was in 01 or 02 when Westside Connection came out with their 2nd album, I used to tune in to KDAY, the beat, Ruthless Radio show etc everyday. I grew up in those times and let me tell you
WHAT WAS POPULAR THEN, WHAT CUBE DRE EAZY E SNOOP WHAT EVER WEST COAST GANGSTA RAPPER YOU WANT SAID IS THE SAME AS WHAT FUTURE GUCCI MANE YOUNG THUG ETC ARE RAPPING NOW
You think Eazy E was making smart rap? No! The whole point of west coast rap was a response to the "Real Issues" phase New York was going through in 88 what Public Enemy was doing for example. The lyrics in most south central gangsta rap songs are about Drugs, Women, Money, Gangbanging. What are Futures songs about?! Doing Drugs...and having money! music does not exist in a vaccum, people who heard NWA then became rappers based on them, then the next generation rapped about what they heard from those guys and so on till today, its not like out of nowhere the whole world changed.

and another thing, even then you had a million guys in the hood trying to "Be Like Dre" and selling you their cheap cassettes in swap meets, guess what...most sucked...they actually sucked worse than up and coming rappers today because they didn;t even have computers they recorded it with a cheap tape recorder over some random beat coming from a record player. Why do you not hear them on youtube, because no one uploaded it because they sucked they only uploaded the good songs

So please don't ever act like WEST COAST GANGSTA RAP was ever about anything other than...being a Gangster
For example look at Commons song "I Used To Love HER" from 1995 the so called "glory days" of hip hop its about him complaining about how rap now is all about drugs and killing and hes "REAL" and "UNDERGROUND" you know how Ice Cube reacted...by saying basically ********* I rap about drugs and killing because I do drugs and killing (he really didn't but thats another story)
This misguided nostalgia is one of the things that can kill hip hop much like it killed rock, too much nostalgia is a bad thing guys...let there be a new generation

[theraven24]

^^^ Drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. have been topics in music since the beginning of time. That's nothing new, however, the expression of these topics in music were different and much better years ago (in my opinion, of course).

Hip-hop is already dead, mainstream hip-hop, that is. It's dead, for the most part.

[ThaBigHomieGucci]

Originally Posted by theraven24

^^^ Drugs, alcohol, sex, etc. have been topics in music since the beginning of time. That's nothing new, however, the expression of these topics in music were different and much better years ago (in my opinion, of course).

Hip-hop is already dead, mainstream hip-hop, that is. It's dead, for the most part.

Ok, I cant really hear much of a change in lyrical content but lyrics have always been secondary to the beat to me (You can have the best lyrics in the world but if the beat is trash, you'd be better off writing it than rapping it)
I dont agree with saying "Hip Hop is dead", its one of the most vibrant genres with a massive fanbase and it seems that a group of new young artists come up every year. But if you don't like the Trap Hip Hop subgenre then I guess thats "dead" to you.
Also, Im Sorry, But Kendrick Lamar is one of the MOST Mainstream and popular artists of Hip Hop today, calling him 'underground' is a joke, I don't think you guys know what 'Underground' really means, winning grammys and selling out stadiums is NOT underground

[ThaBigHomieGucci]

The only way Hip Hop can truly "die" is if Black people invent a new genre and abandon Hip Hop for that new commercially viable genre
This is the way it has historically worked in America
Then it can go two ways, have white people take over from where they left off (Rock,Electronic Music;Remember Black People were the first ones to bring that music to the US sampling European and Japanese artists, House music and Electro for example are black invented genres)
It just dies with dignity (Soul,Funk)
Now will this happen eventually, most likely, It will have been 40 years since 1979 when America was introduced to Hip Hop in 2019, Thats a long time for any genre

[PDF]

Does the OP have some sort of obsession with the 90's?