I'm very well aware that New York City has some kind of speak-easy preservation agenda for hip-hop. "real hip-hop". What the fuck does that even mean anyway? That you have some basement-made beat with a 70's soul sample and a NY-born hip-hop MC that just shits on every other style of the genre?
All this frustration is coming out of the news I read today of NYC audience members booing OJ Da Juiceman last night at B.B. Kings for the 2009 CMJ Music Marathon. From what I read, too, OJ wasn't even bad. He was GOOD. That's something, too, because I understand OJ can be a bit ridiculous... but are people not allowed to like stuff like southern rap?
I read an article yesterday written by someone I know, in my school newspaper (I know, who cares?). he goes on to talk about MTV's top 10 artists to watch in hip-hop or something along those lines, and he said Gucci Mane was on there ahead of Raekwon. The article goes on to just trash the shit outta Gucci Mane saying stuff like he sucks or whatever. Then I see the photo of the writer next to his name and he's wearing a NY Yankees fitted baseball cap. ugh.
Let's just get things out of the way here. Since when was MTV even relevant? Uh... Never. So what if MTV puts out a list of their top 10 whatevers? it won't make any difference because they don't know what the fuck they're talking about to begin with. And so WHAT if Gucci Mane is ahead of Raekwon? I'm gonna just go out there and say that this whole list was about musicians most likely to be on frequent MTV video rotation, and I can confidently say I've never seen a Raekwon video on MTV... but I have seen a T.I. video. I've seen more than one, and a billion times.
Also, WHAT IS WRONG WITH GUCCI MANE? I mean besides that he's kinda a criminal. "yeah, he's a criminal-- he's robbing hip-hop!" SHUT UP.
The only thing Gucci mane does is rap. Sometimes he's good at it and sometimes he's bad at it. Back To The Traphouse, his first major release: Kinda fucking terrible. The Movie Pt 2, a mixtape released by him and DJ Drama: kinda fucking awesome.
If you like Gucci Mane, you like Gucci Mane. Hip-Hop is like film; you're allowed to love shitty movies. yknow the ones that are amazingly bad and full of cheese? Hip-Hop works like that. Music works like that. Everything works like that.
So this whole regional hate for anything that's not traditional East Coast-style hip-hop, or "real hip-hop" as they say, is just going overboard (somebody call a coast guard). Everyone is just a bit upset because for the past 10 years, the hip-hop blazing the radio comes from the south. Listen: Nas hasn't come out with anything good these past couple of years and I'm pretty sure he's going insane. Jay-Z is a bit hit-or-miss lately. The Wu-Tang have no mass radio appeal. Mos Def doesn't like the radio. Common is already there so I don't know what the complaint is here. Jadakiss kinda sucks. Yknow what I'm saying? Like accept it.
NY People equate the whole "hip-hop is dead" term with Southern rap's emergence. Oh I see... NY Hip-Hop is dead. Gotcha. Well good then. Enough with the east-coast rap nostalgia and on to some real 21st century verse.
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