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That's his exact intention it seems; Kendrick has put hip hop back on the map by encouraging (if rather crudely) the new and old generations alike to get back to their roots. And that's exactly what's been happening. This is the response he wanted to trigger, to incite the flow of creativity that has seemingly been lacking lately. It honestly has not been. They say that hip hop was dead; I say it was in a coma, and people just needed to look for some spark to bring it back to life. And that spark has always been available aplenty in underground scenes that people just failed to notice.
I never said Hip-Hop was dead, part of the problem is the Labels that push Hip-Hop into being what it shouldn't be along with the audience picking parts that doesn't really represent hip-hop to its fullest.
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These days, the terms new and old generation shouldn't even matter anymore. Rap and its lyricism has always been evolving, and the legends that are mentioned are legends because they have evolved along with the flow. To simply discredit new generation as just adolescents without any chance to hone their craft just feels counterproductive for the art as a whole. How the hell are we gonna evolve if we just keep sticking to the old ways?
No, no, no, it
was evolving. From Busy B to Big L, you can see the evolution of lyricism quite clearly. Hip-Hop heads that grew up with lyricism at the forefront will know this and see it had actually degraded. The reason we don't care much for the newer/mainstream stuff is the rappers don't even have a sense lyricism. No wit, no clever lines, nothing that can make you go "oh **** did he just say that" or keep you thinking of what was just said causing you to not focus on the rest of the verse and now you have to hit the damn replay button. (I have much more things to pick on but I will leave it at that for now) None of the rappers that Kendrick mentioned have any allure to them lyrically. I will stick with lesser known dudes such as Fred the Godson, that is in a true sense, a lyricist.
Honestly, if you want too look at the actual evolution of lyricism, they are active in the battle realm everyday spitting the most insane lines which the mainstream rappers lack in all categories. Getting their 15-50 thousand views on youtube and that's it. I feel sorry for them as what they are doing is nothing less than amazing. Hell they don't even need a mic, they just need an audience willing to listen to lyrical enlightenment. Oh and one last thing, the highest form of lyricism is so underground, that the best lyricists don't even rap themselves lol
This, I believe, is Kendrick's intention, to stirrup the scene in a constructive manner. Lyrical rapping is akin to participating in a competitive sport; these are gladiators battling for the top spot of rap supremacy. Yeah, Kendrick might have stepped out of the line for claiming to be a King of NY, but that kind of brazen declaration is sometimes needed to turn the creative knob on full blast (case in point: Ether). Kendrick did exactly that as many rappers are currently responding back to back to one-up him. I know this is what YAOWA and the rest of the Slaughter do on their spare time, but there have been other responses that put the rap game back on the map for the masses, and this is a very exciting news to me as a rapper.
Here's the problem though, it still is like an adolescent trying to be treated as an adult. Let me elaborate:
There are still active rappers that perform fine and dandy that has lyricism at the forefront of their music. Save for meek, most of the rappers he mentioned are probably not even battle tested to begin with. How is this supposed to push them to be more lyrical when lyricism isn't even ingrained to their head yet?
You can look at Fabo, he was a young hot spitter from brooklyn that doesn't lack much as a lyricist then fffff over since he can't push lyricism in his music as much as he wanted and marketed at the same time. Yet I could still look forward to him dropping ill verses now and then since I know lyricism is within him given the right circumstances to do an ill verse.
Now replace Fabo in the last part with any lyrical rapper you know: Joe Budden, Joell, Papoose....and the list goes on.
Now you have a bevy of rappers with the skill set respected through mixtapes and seen by hip-hop heads as strong lyricists. Now what will these hip-hop heads think when mainstream rappers are suddenly going to
try to be lyrical? claiming king of what can't be claimed? It's either a big joke or a complete disrespect to the rappers that has already made a name for themselves.
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On a closing note, a few of the artists Kendrick mentioned could definitely match the lyricism of the rappers you posted, along with Kendrick himself: Big K.R.I.T., and J. Cole. They're not as mature, obviously, and of course cannot exceed the legends, but can definitely hold their own.
I can take hopsin or fred the godson over any of those guys actually, I only mentioned fred a couple times already since he has already responded to the verse and he brought up a lot of extremely good points which I would write myself but I will leave it to you to listen to.
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That's a hell of a mixtape. I've heard a lot of those tracks on other B-Sides and Mixtapes (the RJD2 remix of The F-Word is
amazing), but Vast definitely does his own thing. Check out that documentary Revenge of the Robots not only for the Vast Aire feature but because El-P is one interesting cat to listen to philosophize and you get to see what Mr. Lifs mom's house looks like.
Just so we don't forget who the true king (okay that's 100% subjective) is:
In regards to bass heavy... Look at some of the all time greatest artists/albums/songs... it really varies. I wouldn't call GangStarr bass heavy, but then I would say that the bass is not neglecated in Illmatic so there you've got a case of same producer (who is probably top 5 ever) mixing it up on take, Step Into The Arena which is not as bass heavy as Illmatic yet both are still absolute masterpieces. That's why I love hip hop.
Lol in a recent interview with BDK in regards to Rakim VS BDK for GOAT
IDK about GangStarr not being bass heavy, preemo's sound is very noticeable due to its bassy nature and thats what most hip-hop heads use to identify it with. Yet apparently his fave person to sample is James Brown so its more of the boom bap if anything that's easily recognizable.
