OH SHIT! I've been meaning to post this for a week.
Last weekend I was at Passover dinner and I was talking to my brothers-in-law (22 and 17 years old) who are Lil Wayne fans, and I was like "why do you guys like Lil' Wayne? I have some friends that really really want to know."
They looked at me funny, and then older one said "I don't even really like Lil' Wayne anymore, he's too commercial." So i was like "OK, why DID you like him? Please tell me!" and they were both basically like "He has a cool voice and good raps."
Pretty much the standard answer that someone would give about any rapper out there.
So, I think the issue isn't so much "what is going on with Lil' Wayne that I don't understand?" It is "Why is the media trying to spin this guy as Prince or George Clinton or whoever the fuck other musical genius instead of just another rapper?"
As far as why you guys (primary demographic: bordering on middle aged white dudes) don't love Lil Wayne (target demographic: gangsta inner city kids and wannabe inner city kids)... do you really need me to spell that out?
And before you launch into "Well, I like rap from the golden era of '92..." In 1992 I was 17, and, truth be told, I more or less fell into the "wannabe inner city kid" demo. As much as anybody who 17 is, who wants to be cool like the people he sees on MTV.
Would I like Cypress Hill as much if I heard it for the first time today?
3 comments:
True. But the whole thing is what people like Tribe and De La Soul were doing just had so much more originality. And even the gangsta rap stuff like Snoop Dog or Dre, or Nas' first album, that was all exciting new stuff. Lil Wayne is the same old rap bullshit. Rap has plateaued musically, just like rock music did in the 80s with hair band and all that.
OR, is it MORE original in this sense:
Hip hop started with lifting a lot of licks from funk & jazz, kind of like how rock was the baby of the blues. Rock didn't really come into it's own until The Beatles (later stuff), Hendrix, etc, took it to another level. So I think all that newfangled LIl' Wayne hip hop is definitely it's own original thing. I don't hear any shreds of jazz or funk in it like there was in Golden Age stuff, you know?
Trouble is, being a middle age white man, I do think it supremely sucks azz. And I do reserve the right to be grumpy about it, just like the fogeys when I was a teenager.......!
Also, I couldn't help but smile about the "I don't even really like Lil' Wayne anymore, he's too commercial" bit. How many times have 22 year olds said that this century? Does that mean his music has been watered down for the masses, or now that the masses have caught on he is no longer hip?
I'm not exactly in the middle age white man category, but chek it out. My brother is 20 and he was listening to that screamo rock stuff. I can't relate to it at all, but I get where they are coming from. I gotta say it does not bother me at all that people listen to Kelly Clarkson, Britney etc. Music is supposed to make you feel something, and if Lil Wayne floats your boat, good for you. I played a Prefuse disc for my brother, and he hated it.
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