The head sway is our primitive gesture signifying that we internally feel heavy with the beat. Whether it’s an insane guitar riff or the heaviest flow you’ve ever heard, your head movements are a dead giveaway for when the vibe starts actin’ jiggy. Our generation, raised on auto tune and catchy choruses, some even accompanied by its own dance, are no strangers to playful rap music.
Soulja Boy blessed us in 2007 with “Crank That”, a tune for the ages. However, “Crank That”, among favorites such as the 2006 “Chicken Noodle Soup”, have been deemed “crap rap”. As the rap game in 2016 fills itself with young artists looking to entertain, they have fallen victim to the notorious insult that aided aforementioned artists to a brief monumental success, something that a player can only hope for in their career.
I have been trying to explain this new, fantastical hip-hop phenomenon. Hip-hop’s progression has betrayed some and enlightened others. Some rap fans maintain the notion that real rap is based on its storytelling abilities, the beat solely a background instrument to evolve the narrative. To generalize hip-hop would be nothing less of a sin, however I have to admit that it’s ever changing. Not to say rap music back in the day was bad, I’m just saying it lacked the finesse that artists today require behind their bars. XXL’s Freshman Class list stood apart from its predecessors, as 2015 did the year before.
Artists like Lil’ Yachty and Lil’ Uzi Vert, among others such as D.R.A.M and Lil Dicky rely on a smooth, grooving beat to create a visual experience within the audio. The idea of the rapper has been uniquely personified through each member of the Freshman Class. Rap’s main players are majorly young, each whose underlying influence originated from Internet culture. Instant gratification coincides with a pine for fast entertainment. In short, the need to be entertained widens upon the chosen medium. It’s no one’s fault, unless you want to blame technology’s brightest minds along with innate sociological progression. Fetty Wap taught us the importance of a hook while DJ Khaled taught us to expect more from a beat than bars, but the show within the raps. Lil Yachty’s premiere album Lil Boat includes preludes along with a whimsy play on an alter-ego, toying with the idea that serious rap needs a simple beat, when he assures us that, “we’ve never seen before.”
With a completely new generation of rap stemming from a similar modem in time, what we now get is traditional lyricists paving over any idea of decade old “crap rap”. Rap at its very core is poetry, with a plight to get the message out faster, with a beat you can shake your ass to. Chance The Rapper depicts a juvenile beat among beautifully meaningful lyrics, which I heavily consider rap at its generational peak. However, that does not mean rappers who heavily rely on the beat aren’t poets. In fact, paying closer attention to what keeps people grinding works to inspire faster, as hip-hop’s remedial intent.
