…And now, maybe it shouldn’t be about rhyming so much!
At the ripe old age of 31 I can feel my cultural sensibilities collecting cobwebs…
A) Who the fuck actually cares about Kanye West?!? He’s a mediocre producer with sub-mediocre rhyme-writing skills. Were people so jaded with the East and West coasts that they crowned the first Midwesterner with a hint of mass-appeal as the new king of rap?! I dare you to not yawn while listening to West’s voice. He’s got no flow. He sounds tense and nervous….he can’t relax. He’s got an adolescent’s earnestness when he rhymes like he cares too much about whether things DO rhyme or not. (Trust your instincts about that one, man.)
Where does his anger come from?!? At least 50 Cent was shot 9 times — he’s actually got something to BE pissed off about! Did West actually grow up in a housing project or a ghetto? I have no idea what his background is because he seems to only rap about generic gripes with society and promoting “good values” like hope, staying true to yourself and being your own…person or something. I don’t know because I don’t care enough about his giant fucking ego to google his lame ass. You are a rapper! If you want me to know about your life and struggles, put it in your fucking song, not your Wikipedia entry!
B) Real rappers (IMHO) are guys who can put on any old cut or sample and rattle off a story about something they’ve seen. For specifics, see these guys that the VMA watching public (unfortunately) knows nothing about: De La Soul, The Roots, Dead Prez, Atmosphere, Swollen Members, Blackalicious, and I’ll even include West’s Chicago-based brother-from-another-mother, Common. These guys, for the most part, keep alive the classic idea of rap: two or more guys trading off verses, each telling a little story on a loosely connected theme over some R&B samples, loops, and bass-lines. If you want to be into music for the music and not for the ego of the performer, then you have to check out these guys and their progenitors. The truly Old School is made up of The Sugarhill Gang, Grand Master Flash, Doug E. Fresh, Melle Mel, The Furious Five, Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, and many others. In the next generation was was Run DMC, NWA, Beastie Boys, Public Enemy, KRS-1, Boogie Down Productions, Biz Markie, and many others that I don’t have the time to educate you about right now….You are welcome!
C) 50 Cent can’t rhyme either.
D) Quit rhyming for the sake of rhyming. If you are great at rhyming, feel free. If not, pick up a few books, listen to some tracks that are more than 7 years old and expand your freaking horizons. It’s more interesting to listen to something that breaks a rule or two anyway. When we hear you trying to force us into thinking two words rhyme it ruins the whole damn thing. QUIT RAPING MY EARS!
E) You are less than 30 years old. You have millions of dollars from selling a product you love to make and seem to have a knack for doing. You are not deformed. The public generally has inexplicably large amount of respect for you. DON’T THROW A TEMPER TANTRUM WHEN YOU DON’T GET A BULLSHIT AWARD FOR (omg!) 2 YEARS IN A ROW YOU FUCKING PRIMA DONNA LITTLE BITCH.
Allow me to declare here that the Kanye West backlash has officially begun.
The asian dudes behind Better Luck Tomorrow have a new comedy project about the aftermath of Bruce Lee’s death: Finishing the Game. Lee mysteriously died while making The Game of Death, Finishing the Game is the fictional story of the film studio trying to fill his petite, but deadly shoes. BLT was a poorly-written whine-fest about being misunderstood as an Asian-American, but it looks like the dudes behind it have taken their licks and come out with a good sense of humor. The trailer is not entirely promising (aren’t we saturated with 1970’s retro humor?), but they sure got the look of 1970’s filmstock right….so I say, “Right on!”
