Picture this: a thirteen-year-old kid is sitting at the computer. A Google Images results page is displayed on his desktop. Immediately he sees a flurry of Benjamin Franklin heads floating midair as two men casually toss stacks of one hundred dollar bills into the air. In scrolling down, he soon views a family portrait style photograph of a large man wearing a white hat, white tank top, and a shiny platinum cross chain. The man has his arms around two shirtless women by his sides. A few images below, the boy sees that same man pointing a presumably loaded gun at the screen. Several images after that is a photo of a film crew in action at a music video shoot, wherein a man holds a camera close to the behind of a woman as she stands in a position that might imply an extremely sore back under any other context. Then there’s a woman in a bikini. Then there’s a woman bending over, wearing jean shorts so minuscule that they’ve lost their practical utility as clothing. Then there’s a fully tattooed shirtless man holding two fingers in the shape of a gun up to his own temple while smoke creeps out of his mouth. Then another half naked woman. Then another gun. Then some more smoke. I think you get the picture.
Can you guess what the thirteen-year-old kid just searched? “Rap music”. These are the photos that embody its generally recognized image today.
I call this the smog. Tragically, it’s what rap music has come to be recognized by. Granted, within that Google search, the boy will also see an assortment of microphones, murals, and admirably confident stage performers, but the smog is what sticks to memory. These elements of the smog have become household ingredients in the formula for creating popular rap & hip-hop music. What started out as an artistic medium for creatively highlighting social issues and cultural expression has dwindled into a condensed subject matter in adherence to a provenly lucrative image. Sex and violence sold, and amidst that money trail rap music decomposed (in large part) from art to image.
Art, in any form, is a sensitively subjective thing. One man’s figurative painting is another man’s disgusting porn. It’s impossible to draw the hard line between beauty and trash. However, as it pertains to the underlying skill set pertinent to rap music, there is an objective aspect to the mechanics of the writing that can at least be used as a strong indicator of song quality.
Exceptions aside, a well-written rap verse will typically rhyme multiple syllables per line while simultaneously drafting a narrative picture within the mind of a listener. While the latter is intangible, the former is downright quantifiable. There is an immense variance between the degree of difficulty in writing two syllables per line, and advancing into four, five, six-syllable rhyme schemes. Positioning them into a coherent narrative brings yet another degree of complexity. Unfortunately, as it often takes a trained ear to recognize this, we find artists of dramatically different skillsets lumped into the same general “Rap & Hip-Hop” categories based on their popularity among the collectively untrained ear of a pop culture audience.
Furthering the problem the fact that smog has amassed such a lucrative market opportunity that even the best rap artists often concede to compromising their skillset for easy monetization.
“I dumbed it down for my audience, doubled my dollars. They criticize me for it yet they all yell ‘holla’ ….If skills sold, truth be told, I’d probably be lyrically Talib Kweli” –Jay-Z
The vicious spiral continually accelerates as upcoming artists jam into the sole smog-ridden lane proselytized by the blog sites gatekeeping new music discovery. So– it’s been made overwhelming clear that the current state of rap music is broken. Understood. But I personally love writing raps, so it disturbs me to hear the generally dismissive sentiments endorsed by the genre’s critics. Rap music doesn’t just annoy its non-listeners; it scares them. However, that scary voice, like it or not, nests in the ears of millions of youth for an average of two and a half hours per day.
Massive Influence
At sixteen, I was skipping school and smoking chronic While you were sitting in English, Big L was teaching ebonics. -Logic, “No Biggie”.
I was hanging out at a basketball court last fall getting schooled by a group of 7th graders (no shame), when one of the kids was being quite difficult. He had the typical outer skill set while lacking core fundamentals, was utterly un-coachable, and constantly talked trash to his own teammates while making a habit of dirty fouls on opponents. I found him to be quite annoying, while his peers seemed to prefer “asshole” as the descriptive phrase. Surprisingly, after the game, he stuck around on the court to shoot around and borrow my basketball.
Damien was his name, and he was only interested in shooting half court shots. His logic was that if he practiced ultra difficult long-range shots, the short range ones would be easy. Flawed logic, but logic nonetheless. He didn’t quite care for the counter-advice I offered. Then I referenced the hundred or so times that I had observed Derrick Rose’s practice drills as a ball boy for the Chicago Bulls, in which Derrick focuses on very close range shots in order to perfect his form. Empowered by my newfound credibility, I won the debate on best basketball practice techniques with Damien. He countered by switching topics.
“Whatever, I don’t want to be a basketball player, anyways. I’m going to be a rapper” said Damien.
“Oh yea? Well I’m a rapper too.” I said.
“No you’re not ha ha”
“Yea I am”
“Let me hear it then”
“Ok… I was passing fine, in this asinine class of mine, but my passive mind, was looking past the line I’m asked to sign…”
I continued on for the better part of a minute as Damien perked up with a fiery intrigue. I was suddenly credible. He was suddenly engaged.
“Well I got rhymes too.”
He started flowing, quite impressively. That’s when something special happened, which gave me a unique advantage over any schoolteachers trying to reach Damien.
Within one verse, I immediately received an outpouring of data points that gave context and explanation to his poor, un-coachable attitude. It’s not an uncommon story— Damien’s father had left when he was young, and “jail is his location”. He felt that his “people” needed him, and believed that he could be a solution to their problems. It was immediate transparency for me into understanding Damian, and empowerment for him of expressing a mission that he feels obligated to lead. This was rap at its purest form; a kid finding an outlet to express his inner thoughts, while tasked with the complex mental challenge of piecing together the words to do so within a structured rhyme scheme. There’s not an adaptive learning tool in the world that can induce that exercise from a thirteen-year-old kid (for my ed-tech friends).
The conversation progressed into a discussion of our favorite rappers, and before long Damien’s iPhone was out as he showed me a few of the new artists that I was unfamiliar with. He started pulling up YouTube videos of young men rapping (often quite poorly, from a technical rhyme scheme standpoint) about the glories of alcohol, violence, smoking, selling drugs, you name it. One of the videos began with an up-close view of luscious red female lips slowly releasing what’s presumed to be marijuana smoke, before the ensuing male jumped in to ramble off his ubiquitous rendition of the smog. The smog had infiltrated Damien’s most frequently used source of audio & visual entertainment, the modern extension of our brain: his smart phone.
This is what kids are watching. You can try censoring or hiding it, but that’s to demonstrate an even greater (and quite insulting) underestimation of the savvy-ness of today’s youth. Whereas parents ten years ago faced tough odds in attempting to confiscate our burnt CD’s that were physically traded throughout hallway marketplaces, parents today don’t stand a laughing chance when Joey sends Johnny a link to a YouTube video via text message.
Amputation is simply not a viable solution. Better educating the audience on the qualitative indicators to be appreciated in rap music? That might be worth a shot.
Seeing the Diamond
As I have come to understand, for many, rap music is either trivial or indecipherable, and “too ethnic.” In reality, rap artists delivered the greatest poetry of the past 30+ years and have given meaning, inspiration, and hope to people across ethnicities. –Ben Horowitz.
While much negative attention is drawn to the smog, it’s forgotten that underneath its modern public persona, the mechanics of rap music present arguably the most intellectual form of lyrical expression ever seen in music. If music’s most powerful utility is to deliver stories and messages, then a matter of pure word count positions rap to be the most powerful of all. The genre’s entire origins lie in the deliverance of empowering messages and thought provoking story telling.
Somewhere along the road, while rare gems still certainly exist, those origins became horrendously diluted. However, the intrinsic value in the art form remains as strong as ever, no matter how misguided its popular utility.
…Damien and I stopped shooting hoops, and starting talking strictly lyrics. Amidst the smog that he showed me, there was one video of a local Chicago rapper who I felt stood out by his multi-layered rhyme scheme coupled with an actually worthy message. Damian agreed. Pretty soon he was showing me videos and asking, “ok, tell me if this one is a good rapper”. That’s when it hit me; he simply didn’t know how to judge a good rapper from a bad one.
In the first video, which I deemed to be rotten smog, he pointed out, “but look at all those fans”. The clever videographer had captured a scene of what appeared to be a mob of screaming fans voicing their appreciation for the rappers on stage. The perception of mass admiration is what justified the song as high quality in Damien’s mind. Again, flawed logic, but logic nonetheless: if tons of people enjoy this, it must be good. If it’s good, it must make sense. If it’s good and it makes sense, then as an aspiring rapper I should 1.) Write my raps like this. And, in order to “keep it real”, 2.) Engage in the same behaviors being portrayed in this good music that so many people enjoy. The vicious cycle continues…
Can we better highlight the diamonds?
I don’t propose to have some golden solution to the problem, other than encouraging a more enlightened conversation about rap & hip-hop while contributing my own rap creations to the vast sea of music out there. My sense is that a generally heightened audience understanding of and appreciation for the mechanics of lyricism that underscore rap music can at least trigger a gradual reversal of the smog-ridden cycle that’s led to the current state of rap.
What I do know with certainty is that it’s extremely tough for even the best parents and educators to compete with the influence of a loud voice that can nest for one hundred and fifty minutes per day in a kid’s ear. Rap isn’t going away any time soon, so perhaps it’s a better strategy to try evolving it than deleting it.