• Codex
    link
    fedilink
    English
    245 months ago

    It’s a degenerative cycle too. All those rappers pushing the idea of “hustle” and the need to get money by any and all means, have helped create an audience that only values the trappings of perceived financial success. Hustle culture isn’t hiphop’s fault but the two have fed each other for decades to reinforce a terrible system of exploitation at every level.

    • @Dkarma@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      125 months ago

      When the only people in your neighborhood who ever have money are pimps drug dealers and hustlers what do you think you’d grow up to want to be?

      Rappers aren’t a reflection of rap they are a reflection of their environment and neighborhoods.

      • Zoidsberg
        link
        fedilink
        English
        7
        edit-2
        5 months ago

        As a shorty I looked up to the dope man

        Only adult man I knew that wasn’t broke, man

      • @BearigatorM
        link
        English
        45 months ago

        This is a point I wish more people understood. People say rap glorifies this street stuff (and it does) and that is why there is so much street violence in some places. But art doesn’t create reality, it reflects it. People make art about what they know and what they see, so of course they rap about it.

        There are exceptions, dudes who didn’t grow up in that life rapping about it, but that is again a reflection of their life. These are guys who were big in to Hip Hop who created art mirroring what they grew up with, which is rap about a violent life style. They are also the exception, not the rule I feel.

  • @NovaPrime@lemmy.ml
    link
    fedilink
    English
    11
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Canibus said it well back in the day:

    " Hip Hop has never been the same since '88

    Since it became a lucrative profession there’s a misconception

    That a movement in any direction is progression

    Even though the potency of it lessens

    Big money industries writing checks to suppress the question

    And nobody gives a fuck no more "

  • enkers
    link
    fedilink
    English
    5
    edit-2
    5 months ago

    Drinking thinking I’m stupid but deep in my heart I knew it

    Money and fame could lead to emcee murder

    You think you can escape but you can’t take it any further

    You call it writer’s block

    But you stop cause the vine is empty

    Hip hop’s not dead, it’s really the mind of the emcee

        • kindenough
          link
          fedilink
          15 months ago

          Heh, I am coming from the days BDP, Jungle Brothers, lateron Dela and the Tribe, Digable Planets and others gave me insights to social and emotional problems I felt back then. Also a new sense of musical creativity, education in emotional intelligence, deviation from the norm. It was really something else, and as Questlove says we will never have it back. To me mid 80s to early 90s was the golden age of hiphop music.

          • @Jiggle_Physics@lemmy.world
            link
            fedilink
            English
            15 months ago

            Yeah, can’t expect something to stay in one point of time forever. If it did everyone would get tired of it because it stagnated. I will contend that there is a lot of really good indy hip-hop out there, however, since the move to the internet, some people find it harder to wade through the crap.

            That time for hip-hop was what introduced me to it, and it will always probably be my favorite because of that. However I have to accept the changes of time and either learn to move with it or just lock myself away from trying anything else. The older I get the more it takes for me to listen through a bunch of stuff I will end up not liking though.

  • @cubism_pitta@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    55 months ago

    I think it’s amusing that we have gone full circle on Soulja Boy… I remember Ice-T had an entire mixtape dissing Soulja Bay more than a decade ago. I don’t listen to much newer music but I think that some of the older artists in any genre like to hate on some of the new guys.

  • tygerprints
    link
    fedilink
    35 months ago

    You could say that about professional sports (and college sports now, too). It’s only about the money. Not about the game. And who can blame someone for dropping out to make easy money in rap or selling drugs or in sports - our world revolves around money, money, money. Money is the only thing worth anything in life, if we’re honest. If you have to kill cheat and/or compromise yourself, DO IT. Get that money at all costs, dammit!!!

    • @wsweg@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      15 months ago

      easy money in rap or selling drugs or in sports

      One of these is not at all like the others. In what world is it easy making money from sports or rapping??

      • tygerprints
        link
        fedilink
        15 months ago

        The world where I live. College athletes are now getting paid tons of money just to endorse products. And rap music (which is imbecilic to me) is apparently an easy avenue to make money. Oh you have to work a bit for it, sure - but it’s lucrative.