Rap and Hip-Hop has changed a lot over the past two decades. In my opinion Rap and Hip-Hop were at their peak in the late 1980’s and during the 1990’s. During this time period, this genre of music was much better than it is now. Back in the day, rappers and hip-hop artists included so much meaning in their lyrics. They talked about their struggles growing up, crime, and the unjustices within society. It felt like they served a purpose; to educate fans of rap and hip-hop about what goes on in the world and to entertain with a story. Rappers and artists such as Nas, Big L, Biggie, and Tupac succeeded the most in doing so. An example of a song is “New York State of Mind” by Nas. “Life is parallel to Hell but I must maintain and be prosperous, though we live dangerous cops could just arrest me, blamin us, we’re held like hostages”. This one line from the song holds a lot of meaning and tells the audience something about the artist and what he has been through.

Now a-days, this genre of music does not seem what it once was. Sure the beats are much better than that of old school rap and hip-hop, but the meaning behind the music now is almost non-existent. The main topic of this genre now is getting money, fancy cars, fancy clothes, jewelry, and getting hoes. It is almost as if artists have ran out of topics to talk about. They all talk about the same thing now. Most of this music is meant for clubs, for people to dance along too. This means that people won’t really be listening to the lyrics, but for the beat instead. An example of a song of such is “We Fly High”, by Jim Jones. This song has almost no meaning and just talks about getting money: “Ya boy getting paper (Money), I buy big cars (Foreign)
I need fly rides to drive in my garage (Choose 1) Stay sky high (Twisted), fly wit the stars (Twinkle, Twinkle) T 4? Flights, 80 grand large (Balling!)”. How is it possible to vibe to this. Sure, it’s good for the club, but to label it as music is just absurd.

There are some lyrics where it seems as if the artist didn’t even try to make sense. The song “You Ain’t Got Nuthin” by Lil’ Wayne and Juelz Santana is an example. There’s a line that says: “Or heard, Car-ter, hov-er, y’all scared, not me Not I, call me young Popeye Tell Bruno I’m a noo-no, I bring ral to your fune”. I am still having trouble trying to figure out what this means exactly. Sure there are still a small amount of artists that do add meaning to their lyrics such as Common, Kanye West and Lupe Fiasco, but most rappers now are just commercialized and have no real talent; Soulja Boy for example. “Soulja boy off in this hoe Watch me lean and watch me rock Super man that hoe Then watch me crank that Robocop”. Someone mind telling me what the hell this is? What’s sad is that songs like this actually sell. Rappers who write like this are becoming rich for having almost zero talent. People need to stop buying and listening to songs like this. This is the reason why artists continue to produce horrible songs. People need to realize the difference between good and bad rap/hip-hop, and stop supporting the latter. If not, more awful songs will continue to be produced and further tarnish this genre.

http://atlanta.broowaha.com/article.php?id=1627

http://themusicisthemessage.blogspot.com/2008/07/hip-hop-started-out-in-heart.html

Example of Good Hip-Hop “New York State of Mind”, Nas

Example of Bad Hip-Hop “Crank That”, Soulja Boy

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