People always think music changes for the worse. It’s part of growing older. We always remember things better than they
really were. Music is definitely no exception.
Everyone has a memory attached to a song. Even if it’s a shitty song, it
will eventually become a “special” shitty song.
But that’s cool. Every generation
has single-driven artists and artist-driven artists, and that goes for all
genres of music.
What I don’t understand is, one generation prizing they’re
shitty songs while downing the next generations shitty songs. Kids have Soljah Boy. We had Kris
Kross. Kids have V.I.C. We had Tag-Team. We had A.B.C., we had Kid-N-Play, we
had 69 Boyz, we had So-So Def Allstars, we had Vanilla Ice, we had Hammer, we
had Skee-lo, we had Humpty (sans Digital U.), we had a million of ‘em. All great artists. All great at making the
music they wanted to make. They made
shit that we liked. Some of ‘em could only do it once. Some of ‘em lucked out a
couple times. Same with Every ringtone
artist you hear now. For what it’s
worth, they’re good at what they do. They don’t make good shit, they make hot
shit.
It’s kinda funny to me when someone in their mid-20’s or
older compares the flavor of the month to their favorite artist from the 90’s
(i.e. “what the fuck is this Mike Jones shit?! None of these kats can fuck with
Pac” etc., etc.). I personally don’t
think MC Hammer got shit on Young Jeezy either, but that’s me.
When it comes down to it, music will always have two sides.
The artist driven side and the single driven side. We can’t look at one side to give us what we
need from the other side. Don’t wait for
Nas to drop a club joint, and don’t wait for Hurricane Chris to write
“Illmatic”. Neither is happening. It’s been like this since waaaay before our
time.
For instance: A couple years ago, I
was talking to my friend’s dad, a musician who used to play keys for Ohio funk
and soul groups such as Heatwave, SUN, Dayton, and more. He used to warm up
during soundcheck by playing Wes Montgomery and Jimmy Smith (older jazz
musicians at the time) because that’s what influenced him. The young kids (our parents now) would come
up to him and say “we don’t wanna hear that old shit, play some of that
Parliament funk shit.” Sound
familiar?
Occasionally we do get the best of both sides in an
artist. These are usually the most long
term successful artists. They’re
artist-driven, which means the listener cares about their story. These artists are good at conveying their
personality, whether through emotion, humor, introspection, wit, passion, or a
combo of any of these. Think 2pac, BIG, Eminem, Nas, Wayne, Chuck D, Rakim,
Snoop, Jeezy, and Jay.
So, rather than bicker about how one generation’s music is
better than the other, we might as well focus on making sure hip-hop as a
culture cements it’s legacy into the world as properly as possible. In 50 plus years, we’ll all be old folks, and
young kids will look at our hip-hop as one big mass of music anyway.
I wanna flesh this out more (maybe a later blog) but I’m running outta time. But
I always like having these types of discussions with different types of people,
so feel free to add a comment on what you think.
In the meantime, if you’re in Pheonix AZ this Thursday, Oct. 2nd, I’ll be
performing at Chasers.
Also, don’t forget to download the new free record “ill
poetic presents Outkast meets NIN: Nine Inch Naliens” @ www.myspace.com/illpoetic