I Do It For Hip Hop by DeSal

“Visualizin the realism of life and actuality

Fuck who’s the baddest a person’s status depends on salary”

The opening bars of Sosa’s verse on track three of the greatest album of all time are probably the second best opening lines of a song ever, and if you don’t know what number one is, well, you better be a high school cat or younger, because you need more schooling in hip hop.

Hip Hop is the embodiment of the American Dream, and yet also a painful reminder about success in America, where it is often who you know, and not necessarily what you know and how you say it, that defines success. How else does one explain the ability of Soulja Boy to be better known than Phonte Coleman? Granted, one is a solo artist and one is primarily a member of a duo, but still, it comes down to what Hova said in his Moment of Clarity “If skills sold, truth be told, lyrically, I’d be, Talib Kweli. Truthfully, I want to rhyme like Common Sense, but I did 5 mil, I ain’t been rhyming like Common since.” Whether Jay has the ability to rhyme as nice as Common is up for debate, but what is not is that he is commercially the greatest of all time. So great that he can take his homie from Marcy, Bleek, and make him a household name, and apparently very rich, since according to Jay “as long as I’m alive he’s a millionaire.”

I am not some uber-champion for the underground and the backpackers, as while I certainly enjoy the Black Star’s, Common’s, Skyzoo’s, Slum Village’s, Little Brother’s etc, I also have always said NaS was my favorite solist, Bone Thugs my favorite group, and OutKast just a favorite, period. When I weigh in on the eternal “best rapper alive” or “best rapper ever,” I go with a well-known artist every time, but that discussion is for another time.

In my opening post here, I am more concerned with the frustration that I have, not with the state of the game, but rather the state of the popularity of the artists in the game. “ person’s status depends on salary” defines the general public’s interpretation of hip hop, as the status of rappers is tied to their version of salary: radio play, ringtones, 106 & Park, and album sales. To some degree this is important, as to get to the top certainly takes some measure of ability, but just because you get to the top ten does not make you a top notch MC. The current top ten Billboard rap singles include tracks by Flo Rida, Dorrough, Gucci Mane, Young Money, Drake, Fabolous, and Jay-Z. Somehow I think that in a decade we will not remember that all of them were once on top.

I do, however, think there is plenty of good hip hop being put out in 2009. I, like everyone my age, do reminisce over the days when Tribe, B.I.G, the Wu, and the Death Row collective of talent were putting out crazy records, but I also think there are plenty of good songs I have heard recently that show just as much wordplay, production value, and skills as did those in the so-called “golden eras of hip hop.” Lest we forget, there were plenty of terrible songs made in those days as well, but a decade later nobody remembers any of those, but the horribleness of the latest Birdman song rings loudly in my ears every time I hear a radio station playing.

The cream clearly does not always rise to the top in hip hop, but the top in 2009 is not devoid of talent like some critics claim. Everyone loves to talk about what’s wrong with the game, and, with apologies to Juelz Santana, what the game’s been missing. Well, the game is not really all that bad, the best just are not the commercial successes that the best in the 90’s were. Part of that has to do with the constant changing nature of popular music, part comes from the general trouble the music industry is in, and the rest is that usual troublemaker, bad luck and timing. But check out Granite State, Evidence, Skyzoo, OutKast, Chamillionaire, The Game, Saigon, T.I, Lupe Fiasco, Jay-Z, and Wale, all of whom released an album in 08, 09, or are scheduled to do so in the near future. You’re telling me they are not talented MC’s? Have you heard André 3000 on “Royal Flush” or “The Art of Storytellin Part 4?” (Sidebar – what happened to part 3???) Skyzoo on “Ghetto America Remix?” Lupe Fiasco on “Go Go Gadget Flow?” T.I. on “Ain’t I Remix?” Artists from the sun drenched beaches of Cali to the birthplace of hip hop in NYC are still making good, and sometimes G.O.O.D, music in 2009, you just gotta go somewhere other than commercial radio to find it. When you do, trust me, you will rediscover that hip hop is still the beast it was in the good ol’ days before “Born N Raised.”

Hip Hop since 1982

D. Salvo

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