Music Notes | Does Hip Hop Have a Past?
Posted: October 11th, 2009 | Author: Kenneth | Filed under: Music Notes | Tags: Grandmaster Flash, hip hop, hip hop music, Kenneth "Kenny" Williams, Kurtis Blow, LL Cool, Melissa Cole, Music, Music Notes, Public Enemy, rap, Run DMC, Soulja Boy, Star & Buc Wild, The Melissa Cole Show, VladTV | 2 Comments »
That was one of the topics posed on the first episode of the second season of “The Melissa Cole Show” in the Music Notes segment with your humble correspondent. Do I think so? Well…yes…I think hip hop does have a past and that statement can’t be any more far from the truth, but there IS a generational gap. Let me explain…
Hip hop is about 30 years old. I grew up with it (so I’m telling my age!) and I remember “old school” acts like Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five, Kurtis Blow, Run DMC, LL Cool J, Public Enemy and a host of others (just too many to name here, so don’t get mad me). The music was great. For me, back in the ’80s and early ’90s it was all about the clothes, the lingo, those great hip hop anthems, and having fun (pretty much like things now, except today it’s all about “flossin” and “swag”).
But to Star’s point in his web exclusive on VladTV.com where he declares that Soulja Boy and other new hip hop generation acts are THE TRUTH, he sums it up well by saying that hip hop “disposable.” But I think you can pretty much say that for all music. To me, only a handful of real music lovers can appreciate music from the past, whereas on today’s music scene, this generation seems to be of the attitude that if it’s not about “right now” then they couldn’t care less.
What do you think??? Talk to me people!!!
Kenneth “Kenny” Williams is the music contributor for “The Melissa Cole Show” and CEO of In Your Face Records.
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What I don’t get is why it’s about “old” versus “new” with a lot of people. On one end of the spectrum, you’ve got people saying that the music is terrible now and artists like Soulja Boy offer no lyrical content. Conversely, you’ve got people like the little kids that were mocking me for listening to BIGGIE (!!!) to the subway. I don’t understand why there can’t be a simultaneous appreciation for the old AND the new. There is something to appreciate about Soulja Boy’s music (TURN MY SWAG ON!!!) just as there is MUCH to appreciate from Biggie, an indisputable master of rhyming.
All I’m saying is that you have to appreciate new for what is it, not for what it is comparably to RUN DMC.
And another point! — people ALWAYS say music “isn’t what it used to be.” Right now, you’re complaining about T-Pain and in ten years, you’ll be nostalgic over his auto-tune.
(Also, I never thought of Biggie as “old school” until those teens laughed at me.)