"Haha alright cool" I said trying to return to our initial topic. "So what do you think one of the biggest problems in Hip Hop is today?"
"Well..." Ahmed replied taking a long moment to think to which he finally answered "EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE A RAPPER!"
Good morning HipHoppas and influencees!
While working on an upcoming video, I came across this interview with Ahmed in the archives. One of the first interviews I've ever done. It's true. Whether its the notorious Twitter rappers DMing you to check out their low quality Soundcloud and tweeting you links to their poorly funded music videos, or if it's the high school rapper asking you to put a link to his track on your Facebook; everyone wants to be a rapper and it's slowly getting to the point that the good rap is being difficult to find because it's so deeply lost in all of the pop-saturated, generic, bubble gum rap being produced right now. It's actually already gotten to that point I think.
I'm not mad that everyone wants to be a rapper - at the end of the day that's more music for me - I'm mad at the fact that half of the people pursuing such a career aren't talented nor are they educated in the art of rap. We can't have a clown representing us. I'm working on the third Hip Hop Video Diary and one of the issues the hip hop headz discuss in it is whether the Hip Hop culture is being respected. All said no. Among the obvious reasons being the misconceptions surrounding areas such as "Hip Hop being solely misogynistic" and such, came another perspective: people don't respect Hip Hop because the people that are put forward to represent our culture don't respect it either and are nowhere near what the representative should actually be like. You have people like Weezy that unfortunately are the first image that comes to mind when people that aren't apart of Hip Hop think about when looking at Hip Hop.
Too many times I've found myself trying to compile a list of my top ten commercial rappers and end up stopping at five or six rappers (Kendrick, Drake, J. Cole, etc.) saying "We don't actually have that many rappers.." because I battle to find anyone that's actually murdering the charts and really speaking sense at the same time. I'm not expecting the radios to play Immortal Technique because we all know the deal with radios and the type tracks that they play on rotation but if they're going to put out rappers can they at least have SOMETHING to say? I do aknowledge that the mere fact that there are so many rappers is an indication of the growth of Hip Hop but I'm tired of passing every corner and bumping into a rapper. I want quality, not quantity.
What's your view on this? Let me know...
Peace, love and Hip Hop
KTTIB x
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