Image via Complex Original
There's never been a time when rap didn't have to defend itself. The culture perpetually generates criticism and accusations from every corner: from the political establishment; from proponents of other types of music; and, most crucially, from itself.
Luckily, rap is particularly well equipped to absorb all the criticism it invites, because rap, by its very nature, is a culture in which almost nothing is impermissible. Pathological narcissism, poor taste, and criminal behavior are punishable traits by the standards of the mainstream culture. But within rap, even the most shameful acts are defensible, if only because rap is meant to be a melting pot of egregious behavior and reckless judgment.
Still, beyond the clichéd array of indictments lobbed at rap each year—“It glorifies violence!" "It is not kind to women!" "That terrible music is dumbing us down!”—the culture must take responsibility for a handful of monumental errors for which there is absolutely no defense. So leave your formulaic complaints behind, because we’re offering you ironclad artillery.
Written by Sam Sweet
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Rappers Thinking They Can Have a Career as Something Other Than Being A Rapper
When exactly did rap become a temporary occupation? It's one thing if rappers want to be producers, A&R men, or even label owners, but it's gotten to the point where beats and rhymes are only a stepping stone to people fulfilling their dreams of being a... what? Fashion designer? Action movie star? TV host? This trend reached the tipping point last year when Jay-Z used his fortune to anoint himself a sports agent.
The fact is, no one's "bigger than rap." Stay in the game, make your dollar, but commit to being the best rapper you can be for the rest of your life. You don't see Keith Richards out there trying to break into the soccer business, do you?
Shameless Perpetuation of Cliché
Ever seen one of the videos where piranhas eat an entire gold fish? That's nothing compared to what rappers do when they get wind of a trend. The moment that a word like "swag" becomes unbearably ubiquitous is the moment you can be sure that you'll hear that word on every rap album for the next eight years.
Rappers will run clichés deep into the ground only so they can exhume them and run them down even deeper. Momma songs, posse cuts, "beef." A cliché could be 30 years old and covered in mold spores and that still wouldn't be enough to deter each new generation of rappers from recycling it.
Poor Mastering
If it weren't for bad mastering, we would be living in the golden age of hip-hop sound design. Zaytoven, Young Chop, and DJ Fresh are just a few of the masterminds coming up with rap beats that are more colossal and imaginative and visceral than anything that has come before.
Sadly, high-quality mastering has become a distant memory, and because today's killer beats are generated, tested, and distributed on inferior digital equipment, the final product can sound entirely different from what its authors intended. One of the reasons that rap's so-called "Golden Age" is still considered a golden age is that the old Pete Rock and Tribe albums sound rich and lustrous regardless of how and where they are played.
While some of the young guns have accepted the inevitability of today's chintzy sonic landscape and turned lo-fi tracks into an art form (take another bow, Based God!), reinstituting the subtle art of mastering would make for a new rap renaissance.
Flagrant Copycatting
Rap has a complete lack of scruples when it comes to originality. Sure, plagiarism is in the culture's DNA (in the form of sampling). But why is it when a Lex Luger beat hits, we will inevitably, undoubtedly, be subjected to no less than 600 reproductions of that Lex Luger beat?
You'd think when a couple guys start rapping about Molly, the rest of rap might turn in another direction in order to differentiate themselves. Not so. Rappers are born followers, and even the most original artists among us seem to have sadly few qualms about hopping on a bandwagon. (Notable, laudable exception: Andre 3000. Can you think of a single trend he's followed in the past 10 years?)
One year Lil Wayne is inventing heretofore unimaginable rhyme schemes; the next, he is trying desperately to learn skateboarding so as to keep up with Odd Future. Stop this madness.
Twenty Onstage When Two Will Do
This phenomenon is so pervasive that even non-rap fans complain about it. We are a proud culture of weed carriers but when is the aesthetic of rap concerts going to shift back to the days of Eric B. and Rakim, when two human beings could dominate an entire stage by themselves?
This horrifying problem originates with Wu-Tang Clan, who deputized about thirty people as honorary members, thereby making it impossible for audiences to discern who exactly they had paid to see. The energy that an extended crew might have once brought to a mid-concert flash mob has long since vanished.
Simply put: if you're not in the band, we don't want to see you onstage. Brad Paisley probably has a traveling entourage of twenty bros with whom he grew up in West Virginia, but no way is he inviting all those yahoos to crowd his stage during a concert. Fans of other genres don't have to deal with this nonsense. We shouldn't either.
Shameless Sequels to Classic Albums
The only thing worse than rap deeming a new album "classic" is the assurance that we will eventually be subjected to needless sequels. Volume Twos. Volume Threes. Even Volume Fours. There is no limit to the extent that rappers will plunder the corpse of their own success.
Today, artists are so lazy, they'd rather capitalize on old goodwill than attempt to create new goodwill. Rap fans need to take some responsibility in encouraging the release of a Cuban Linx 3 or a Carter VI.
Have we learned nothing from Hollywood's serialization of old franchises? Just because a rapper resuscitates the name of his last successful album to sell his latest doesn't mean we should be duped into equating the quality of the products. Boycott sequels!
Rap's Horrible Taste in Contemporary Music That Isn't Rap
Remember when the formerly hyphenated artist known as Jay Z proclaimed that the cuddly indie rock outfit Grizzly Bear was going to "push hip-hop forward"? Does it make you uncomfortable to see Kanye treat Justin Vernon from Bon Iver like he's the new John Lennon? Ever wondered why John Mayer always seems to be hovering around your favorite new rap star?
It's not a conspiracy. It's simply that rappers' taste goes out the window when they leave the realm of rap. It's not that the ghetto pass is a bad idea. It's just that rappers aren't qualified to decide who gets one. The inverse is true as well: The rest of the music world, by and large, has terrible, tokenistic taste in rap. To put it in terms rap stars can understand: If you grew up eating steak, don't suddenly pretend that you know how to order sushi.
The Rapper-as-Hologram
The reappearance of 2Pac in 2012 was capitalistic opportunism taken to its most cynical conclusion. The massive excitement heaped on this cheap spectacle belied its underlying sentiment: Now we don't even need the human—we only need the image. Mercifully, Digital Domain (the company responsible for creating the rapper holograms) filed for bankruptcy late last year. But that doesn't absolve them of their responsibility in creating the most heinous publicity stunt in rap history.
"Collaborations" With Dead Rappers
No one cares if Biggie gave you a dap in 1995: A living performer should never be allowed to do a Weekend at Bernie's with a dead rapper's voice. Rappers love to say "rest in peace" but what they really mean is "rest in peace until I rob your grave for a hot cameo that I can use to sell my Interscope debut."
Dead people are defenseless. They have no means of protecting their legacy. Therefore, anyone who even pretends to care about the legacy of a 2Pac or a Biggie has only one choice: Leave him alone.
They don't need you to "keep their voice alive"—they live on in the music that they created during their lifetime. Until someone invents a means of granting consent from beyond the grave (and no doubt the guys who made the Tupac hologram are working on it) "collaborations" with the deceased will be just another form of indefensible exploitation.
Rap Writers, Rap Blogs, and (Most of All!) Rap Lists
The media is the one absolutely dispensable sector of the rap industry. Even in the 1980s, when a few intelligent writers sought to "explain" and "contextualize" hip-hop for a broader audience, the media played a non-essential role in the life of the culture.
Now, there are tens of thousands of writers generating millions of words. All of it constitutes a mushroom cloud of smoke surrounding the actual creation of an original artwork. One could never argue that that smoke makes it easier to understand or experience music. It only makes it harder breathe.
Rap is loud enough to speak for itself. It doesn't need—and has never needed—a circuit of word-peddlers to justify its existence or give it presence. Regardless of the level of intelligence they might reflect, reading books, magazines or blogs and ruminating on lists like this one will never get you closer to the music. So what are you doing? Stop reading already!
Get out in the world, bump your music loud and tune out the deafening windstorm of extraneous chatter. That, humble knowledge seekers, is the only path to true rap enlightenment.