Str8HipHip

Are You Rappin’? Or Re-enactin’?
Current mood: Starry Nights
Category: Starry Nights Music

"Everybody, fall back/
Y'all rapping, I'm reenacting/
CNN, you see it's accurate/
ESPN, see me in action/
Monday night's, when the half ends/
When you 10 years in, holla back then/"

Spoken (or rapped, I guess) like the true veteran/legend he (Hov) is. But then again I wonder, does this make sense? His adversaries are rapping and he's reenacting. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I guess he's saying he's like CNN, b/c he's real, and like ESPN b/c he's real entertainment. Others are just rappers; he's news, entertainment, the whole show. Still, I can't get past the whole "reenacting" thing. The Hov of today, some might say, is "reenacting" what the Hov of yesterday used to actually be - a rapper who was the "mouthpiece for hustlers/ventriloquist for jugglers..." Is today's Hov a little too much politician? Is he, and other rappers of today, just "stylin' on us?" Foolin' us into thinking they're still intriguing, when low record sales and lack of new, real rap stars (I agree with the popular industry theory that rap is starving for a new star - I mean superstar, and I mean this from a mainstream standpoint, but that's another blog for another day) are providing evidence to the contrary? Something to think about. But this aint about Hov, really. Two people inspired this blog. One is someone who's career, ironically, Hov seriously injured in one of his (some would say) last acts of actually being a "rapper" instead of a "reenacter."

The other is the cat who inspired me to make "The Petting Zoo" (download it for FREE here - http://www.zshare.net/download/755142891f6b3e/). He sent me an e-mail detailing Progidy's (from legendary rap group Mobb Deep) claims of starting many trends in hip-hop and the world at-large, from his blog. These are just some of the claims Progidy made, before I continue with this blog, which really isn't about Progidy particularly:

1 TATTOO'S ON MY CHEST, ARMS AND HAND SINCE I WAS 12 YEARS OLD

2 RAPPING WORDS THAT DONT ALWAYS RHYME

5 HOW I FOLD MY BANDANA

8 MADE DRINKIN HENNESSY, E&J, LIME BACARDI, 151 POPULAR (nothin to be proud
of)

11 FIRST RAPPER WIT TATS ON MY FINGERS AND MY WHOLE NECK DONE

14 WE MADE DOING SONGS FOR CHICKS COOL FOR STREET NIGGAS

23 MAKING EXPOSING THE ILLUMINATI, SECRET GOVERNMENT AND HIDDEN TRUTHS THAT NEW HOT SHIT… PEOPLE DO IT, BUT NOT LIKE P. I BEEN DOIN IT SINCE 96… JUST LISTEN TO MY BEATS AND HOW I MAKE THIS SHIT SO THAT THE REAL HOOD NIGGAS CAN GET INTO IT…. THESE FAGGOT CONCIOUS RAPPERS WILL NEVER REACH THE CROWED OF KILLERS THAT I REACH….HOW DARE YOU QUESTION MY TREND SETTING, LOOK AT WHAT I BRING TO THE TABLE.

While some of this sh-t seems MAD absurd (14 in particular to me), it just made me think about how only a rapper would say this kinda sh-t. Which is a good thing. And though I aint a drug dealer/killer, I definitely got some Mobb DNA in my rap makeup. This is the actual response I wrote over e-mail:

This sh-t is great. Rappers nowadays are what rockers were a coupla decades ago. Rockers (I mean anyone from like Bon Jovi, Van Halen, to Guns n Roses to fucking Ramones, hard niggas like AC/DC, Anthrax, Metallica, and even niggas like Poison or even Genesis wit' my nigga Phil Collins, lol - fucking rockers that you'll see on a corny 'vintage' t-shirt) use to be outrageous, dress crazy, say and do wild shit, f-cked celebrities, got in trouble, all of that. Now, it's the rappers who do that sh-t. Granted, a coupla rockers still rock-the-fuck-out (and rappers, since most are black and hood-raised, get in waaay more trouble), but rappers are the ones everyone really wants to be like. Them f-cking suburban kids, not just ghetto kids, would rather be 50, Jay, Kanye, or Em (or
Lebron, Wade, or Kobe) than...shit, I can't even think of any fly-ass rockers, at least not any young ones. Some old ones are still wildin', but the young ones all wanna whine and look normal (or gay, but not "i-wear-make-up-and-spandex-cause-it-makes-groupies-wanna-blow-me hair-band gay," I mean "I'm-a-fag-poseur-imitating-other-fag-poseurs-and-I'm-at-risk-of-getting-gay-bashed" gay), and be homo.

Us in the hip-hop community are always dissing certain rappers, and judgin' them, and making critiques, but that's at least cause these niggas are interesting on many levels. Or at least they were, like classic-Mobb era niggas. Problem is, and I'm speaking to how I feel and how rap impacts me as a 28-year old, rap is at that same place rock got to some years back - niggas startin' to pose and try to convince us that their interesting when there's nothing fresh about them. Rock's still popular, but there's really no one on the scene, who is relatively new, who captivates music like 50 or Kanye. Shit, the biggest rockers are niggas like Daughtry and Avril Lavigne and Nickelback! Man, is this where rap is headed?

'Cause think about this kinda Prodigy ignorance and then think about the contrived ignorance of niggas like Jim Jones and Game or even so-called righteous thugs like Saigon. I like all of these rappers, but back in our day (wow, am I that old, lol?), I'm talkin' mid-90s, they wouldn't be on the level of the niggas we used to always talk about. They're still more interesting than the pussy rockers, but they wouldn't live as far as buzz and having the streets and hip-hop heads captivated like Wu, B.I.G., Nas, Jay, Snoop, Outkast, Bone and them niggas did in the 90s. And sh-t, to keep it real, I don't know if 50 or Kanye woulda ate well back then (yeah, I know, Kanye was eating back then by secretly doing Hitmen beats, allegedly). Anyway, that's what this Prodigy shit reminds me of - how interesting rappers are, but how rare it is for rappers to value that sh-t anymore in a meaningful way.

Then again, maybe it's the fans, who go for the smoke and mirrors.
Or maybe radio and video programmers who program that shit.

What-the-fuck-ever. That shit about "faggot conscious rappers" is my quote of '08 so far.

-The Unforgivable StarPower

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