Rappers today have achieved levels of success that the pioneers of this generational phenomenon could once only dream of. What we are witnessing now is progressive prosperity: the seeds sown by the innovators of Hip-Hop are being fully reaped. Only now, the harvest isn’t as natural as it used to be. It’s a hopped up and recycled product – a shallow shell of the precedence that once set this art form apart from anything anyone had ever seen or heard before.
Granted, there is still much originality to be appreciated in what is now a global industry. However, much of what is being created today is no longer a demonstration of individuality as much as it is about the duplication of a successful blueprint.
In short, for the sake of “getting paid,” some rappers today have managed to emulate the very words they create in that they all sound the same. So much for creative expression.
Sessions of Self-Destruction
We now live in a climate
Where lyrics are criminally minded.
We’ve been mentally blinded by “Thug Life”
tattoos and attitudes.
It’s one thing to call attention to city limits –
It’s entirely another when it’s mimicked as a gimmick…
It’s an extensive epidemic of facts misconstrued on wax tunes.
I’d rather see emcees lyrically finesse with good hooks
Over emcees interiorly recessed in hood nooks.
God forbid they come spiritually correct from
the Good Book – pigs would fly first.
Instead, most choose validation
By corroding their talents wasted
Into a pool of miscalculations that drowns
and hides their worth.
What’s embraced now in raps and flows
Is a blatant take on the files found in Attack of the Clones.
Rabid tones are etched in stones ‘round the
necks of folks with a new noose.
If we could replace half of the status quo and flash that’s shone
With immaculate quotes filled with facts for the dome…
We’d be masters of our souls – yet instead,
we disappoint like Episode II.
Caught in the middle of rap’s battle zone,
Hip-Hop’s new followers need chaperons –
Many have attached to roles where crack is sold not in vials, but images vile.
No one reverences the tracks of old
When veterans still had their souls…
If they’re not reppin’ capital,
their style’s not worth mentionin’ now.
New jack rappers seek the easy way out in formulas
That have been easily laid out like flooring rugs.
Don’t consort with them, I’m warnin’ ya’ –
their deeds mislead and strip the people.
Today’s rappers have stolen harmonies
in their criminal records –
They all commit bold larceny with pitiful gestures…
When lines are contrived with minimal effort
I just say no to the track and skip the needle.
I’m worn out by tired flows and unoriginal ledgers.
I’m pullin’ horns out to blow whistles
on these whimsical jesters.
They’re timid little hecklers – too afraid to stir still waters
without stolen thunder.
They’d rather whine about grindin’ waistlines
And invade minds with tales of sellin’ base and dimes…
They’re all wastes of space and time –
as collabos implode wherever clone numbers lumber.
If you didn’t get it, study physics –
the latter line’s at its baseline.
Like matter can’t occupy the same space at the same time.
When we feel quakes, it isn’t the bass line –
it’s the ripple effect of self-destruction.
The way it reverberates affects the system
And sternly shakes vertebrates with its mechanism…
When words are fake, they wreck and wizen
the special wisdom once held in the subject.
This epidemic’s especially wicked
in the midst of cloning threats.
What once served as shock value now controls the set.
Biggie Smalls was the older Fett –
clones of the vet know success by emulating his role.
Rap’s overrun with so many random Boba Fetts
Carrying theoretical handguns and supposed threats
That the tones these kleptos have kept
slowly beget a single note that’s taken its toll.
Equal pitch and repeated frequency causes resonation.
When left untreated, the damage extends beyond reparations.
The aftermath’s a disastrous path set in the wake’s run –
forget a takeover, take cover.
Like Todd after Diff’rent Strokes or
Like Nas when he rekindled his folklore…
The bridge will be over – as chasms between Blacks
and rap will crack from blasts of fake thunder.
