Hear hear. For those who haven't had a lot of exposure to rap, I highly encourage you to explore the early roots of rap and hip-hop; you will find that much of it is extremely socially conscious, in ways more authentic and more compelling than long, drawn-out exposes and journal reports.
And then mainstream rap took a dive off a cliff into meaningless misogyny, bling, and euphemisms involving skeet shooting.
Rap today is a mashup of old lyrics, over-engineered (and unnecessary) beats and a sad use of Autotune. I used to DJ for years and couldn't stand where the music was going, but the classics are considered classic for a reason, in my book at least.
Listening to, and I mean really listening to the lyrics of true rappers that started and built the movement up is inspiring. Much of it is the obvious "Hoes & Cash", but there is almost always a reason they bring it up. It was either about what they strived to get to, or the rewards of their hustle and struggle to break out of the streets they grew up on. It truly is a unique form of expression that very few other music forms can touch.
Rap today is a mashup of old lyrics, over-engineered (and unnecessary) beats and a sad use of Autotune.
Mainstream rap, sure. But I don't think "rap" generally is worse. It's just that it's become popular enough for there to be a crass mainstream that didn't exist in the 80s.
It's common to bemoan the modern state of many things but we should recognize that while the mean quality may have dropped, the median probably hasn't. There's a lot of great rap still out there - it's just not the common definition anymore. (It's like bemoaning the commercialization of blogs or the low quality celeb accounts on Twitter - the good stuff still exists on both.)
hip hop can be all sorts of things, it doesn't just have to be what you like. Kanye's album was good, so are Weezy's mixtapes and Gucci's last mix that came out. Each of them has their own context. So does Del, Anticon, and everyone else.
Amen. I get so tired of the "mainstream rap has degenerated" argument. Every genre of music has tons of different artists, each with a different approach, and it's a general trend that people who listened to a genre of music in one era tend to not like the newer stuff (Try getting a classic rock or country fan to listen to a modern rock or country station, and watch the criticism flow!). It's just the nature of things.
The fact that you don't like the content/style/message/whatever doesn't make an art form any less an art form.
And then mainstream rap took a dive off a cliff into meaningless misogyny, bling, and euphemisms involving skeet shooting.