Oops... Rock & Rant-When I need to quickly rant about music.
Okay, so my friend calls me frantic saying, “You’ve got to hear this Kendrick Lamar verse! He woke up hip-hop! He’s claiming to be the king of New York and he’s from the west coast!” I quickly rolled my eyes and scoffed, “How is that waking up hip-hop? And so what if he claims to be the king of anything? He’s a newbie; we all know he’s not.” My friend wasn’t the only one whose world was apparently paused by Lamar’s feature on Big Sean’s “Control.” Social media exploded. Everyone kept saying to me “Just listen to it. You’ll feel differently, you’ll understand.” Finally putting the track through my ears, I was even more apathetic and annoyed than before. This was big hip-hop news?! Were we so bored with music that a rapper simply bragging and igniting yet another childish and unnecessary beef (namely with his contemporaries like Drake, J.Cole & ASAP Rocky, to call a few) was all the rage? It was gimmicky as hell, but I guess that was the point because it worked. People fell out and gave him credit he really didn’t deserve. The lines surrounding the disses were even less impressive, with use of the oldest street adage (“I don’t smoke crack, mother f*****, I sell it!”) and repeated concepts reworded. I saw a comment online that read “If he’s claiming to be the King of New York, Jay-Z & Nas should feel threatened.” What for? Artists like Jay-Z and Nas won’t care because they’ve already made history. Watch the throne; their initials are etched in the chair. To quote Shawn Carter directly, “I’m a Warhol already.” The newer acts Lamar mentioned shouldn’t feel threatened either because they arrived first; a few with endorsements from older heavyweights. So….
Okay, so my friend calls me frantic saying, “You’ve got to hear this Kendrick Lamar verse! He woke up hip-hop! He’s claiming to be the king of New York and he’s from the west coast!” I quickly rolled my eyes and scoffed, “How is that waking up hip-hop? And so what if he claims to be the king of anything? He’s a newbie; we all know he’s not.” My friend wasn’t the only one whose world was apparently paused by Lamar’s feature on Big Sean’s “Control.” Social media exploded. Everyone kept saying to me “Just listen to it. You’ll feel differently, you’ll understand.” Finally putting the track through my ears, I was even more apathetic and annoyed than before. This was big hip-hop news?! Were we so bored with music that a rapper simply bragging and igniting yet another childish and unnecessary beef (namely with his contemporaries like Drake, J.Cole & ASAP Rocky, to call a few) was all the rage? It was gimmicky as hell, but I guess that was the point because it worked. People fell out and gave him credit he really didn’t deserve. The lines surrounding the disses were even less impressive, with use of the oldest street adage (“I don’t smoke crack, mother f*****, I sell it!”) and repeated concepts reworded. I saw a comment online that read “If he’s claiming to be the King of New York, Jay-Z & Nas should feel threatened.” What for? Artists like Jay-Z and Nas won’t care because they’ve already made history. Watch the throne; their initials are etched in the chair. To quote Shawn Carter directly, “I’m a Warhol already.” The newer acts Lamar mentioned shouldn’t feel threatened either because they arrived first; a few with endorsements from older heavyweights. So….
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