![]() ![]() There are no longer a handful of record companies with individual, polished aesthetics releasing a fiercely coordinated stream of hits. It’s clear that with the modern ease in recording and distributing music, genre lines are blurring. So why did everyone freak out over “mumble rap?” Perhaps the issue is in holding onto the genre itself. It isn’t startling when Drake releases a crooning hip-hop ballad, or even when 21 Pilots pump out rap packaged in pop-rock. Yet hip-hop music, whatever that means anymore, is not homogeneous, nor should it be. And some contemporary artists (say, J Cole or Joey Bada$$) are applauded for sticking to that winning template. ![]() Their stories and dreams resonated with their peers, and so they were lifted and encouraged to preach with a mic. For most of its history, one of the most compelling aspects of the musical genre is that it became the ropes by which the underprivileged hoisted themselves off of the streets. In “Hurricane,” Hamilton sings “I wrote my way out,” because Miranda rightfully saw in him the story of hip-hop. This may seem like an unnecessary reference, but Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton does not tell its story through rap by chance. The issue with these traditions is that they attempt to tether every artist in the orbit of hip-hop to a single narrative - that of the hungry upstart spitting clever yet political rhymes over sampled breakbeats so as to escape the trappings of gangs and selling drugs.Īdmittedly, that was and still is a story worth telling. But this too corrals and projects in a destructive manner. Then there is the XXL Freshman list, an annual round-up of rappers who are ‘next-up,’ which is often an accurate benchmark, and perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy. An eclectic range of musical artists are all funneled and forced to perform the same talent. Other radio programs like Sway in the Morning and the Breakfast Club consistently bring rappers on to chat and freestyle, and be judged. Hot 97 is just one institution that holds immense sway for the hip-hop zeitgeist. And much of it stems from cultural institutions. But this odd recoil to change still runs amuck. Some critics have thankfully already started to take them seriously. ![]() These rappers are already successful, and will continue to be. Most fans don’t care about these invented rules of the game, though. Because they mumble, they are not true rappers, and because they are not true rappers, all of their music gets discredited. So many have bemoaned lost lyricism in the past couple years, ignoring literally everything else about the music. People label him and a slew of others “mumble rappers,” because sometimes their lyrics are hard to understand. Lil Uzi Vert is just one example of a rapper who has gotten tons of flack as of late for…well, for being inarticulate. Not to mention: it’s not even fair to ask every rapper to freestyle, which is surely an independent skill from recording or performing music. It just isn’t the type of music that Uzi makes, and it isn’t fair for that to be his trial. If Ebro had listened to a few of Lil Uzi Vert’s songs - which he surely did in preparation for the interview - he shouldn’t have tried to squeeze Uzi into a beat from the ‘golden age’ of hip-hop. Ebro bellows back, “I do that to y’all young cats to see what y’all really built on.” It’s ridiculous, and Ebro genuinely doesn’t get it. Ebro tries to get Uzi to rap over a DJ Premier beat. In February of 2016, Lil Uzi Vert is invited onto Hot 97, a New York radio station that often puts both up-and-coming and seasoned MC’s to the test. ![]()
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