Check the Rhyme
Adam Hamdy
Issue date: 5/1/06 Section: Entertainment
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Readers: don't be confused. I have no vendetta against rap music. On the contrary, it is a passion for me. I am positive it has made me, a perpetuator of ideas, who I am today.
Unfortunately, the well of true Hip-Hop talent has apparently dried up. A few retirements and sabbaticals, as well as too many untimely deaths, have left Hip-Hop music in a temporary holding cell.
Violence has claimed some of the most prominent and skillful artists to ever bless the microphone. The most common being Tupac Shakur and Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, who were both killed less than 10 years ago. More recently, this past April 11, the death of DeShaun "Proof" Holton was reported in Detroit after he was involved in an altercation with firearms.
This violence has become Hip-Hop's staple within recent years, as executives scramble for any artist with a gunshot wound and street credibility. Artists such as 50 Cent, T.I., and Young Jeezy, to name the most recently successful, have capitalized on the sales of ultra-violence. As the raps about selling coke, conning women, and killing enemies increase, so does the demand.
Of course, the casual reader would say Hip-Hop has always been about exactly those three things. This is not entirely false.
Since the late 80's, these matters had become more of a Hip-Hop focal point to say the least. Though in today's corporate and highly lucrative Hip-Hop industry, it has become practically the only subject matter spewed into the mainstream.
Organized anarchy, scripted beefs, and simply a lack in quality have replaced the days of clever wordplay, intelligent metaphor, comic reference, and spontaneity.
Even though the notoriously graphic Eminem (co-member of rap group D-12 with the recently murdered Proof) seems frantic and almost insane, the majority of his music is lyrical poetry. And, although graphic, his works are nothing more harmful or violent than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. For example, there is an comic strip quality to these words: "I ain't even drug you in the woods yet to paint the forest/A bloodstain is orange after you wash it three or four times/in a tub but that's normal ain't it Norman?/Serial killer hiding murder material/in a cereal box on top of your stereo/Here we go again, we're out of our medicine/out of our minds, and we want in yours, let us in."
Unfortunately, the well of true Hip-Hop talent has apparently dried up. A few retirements and sabbaticals, as well as too many untimely deaths, have left Hip-Hop music in a temporary holding cell.
Violence has claimed some of the most prominent and skillful artists to ever bless the microphone. The most common being Tupac Shakur and Christopher "The Notorious B.I.G." Wallace, who were both killed less than 10 years ago. More recently, this past April 11, the death of DeShaun "Proof" Holton was reported in Detroit after he was involved in an altercation with firearms.
This violence has become Hip-Hop's staple within recent years, as executives scramble for any artist with a gunshot wound and street credibility. Artists such as 50 Cent, T.I., and Young Jeezy, to name the most recently successful, have capitalized on the sales of ultra-violence. As the raps about selling coke, conning women, and killing enemies increase, so does the demand.
Of course, the casual reader would say Hip-Hop has always been about exactly those three things. This is not entirely false.
Since the late 80's, these matters had become more of a Hip-Hop focal point to say the least. Though in today's corporate and highly lucrative Hip-Hop industry, it has become practically the only subject matter spewed into the mainstream.
Organized anarchy, scripted beefs, and simply a lack in quality have replaced the days of clever wordplay, intelligent metaphor, comic reference, and spontaneity.
Even though the notoriously graphic Eminem (co-member of rap group D-12 with the recently murdered Proof) seems frantic and almost insane, the majority of his music is lyrical poetry. And, although graphic, his works are nothing more harmful or violent than a Bugs Bunny cartoon. For example, there is an comic strip quality to these words: "I ain't even drug you in the woods yet to paint the forest/A bloodstain is orange after you wash it three or four times/in a tub but that's normal ain't it Norman?/Serial killer hiding murder material/in a cereal box on top of your stereo/Here we go again, we're out of our medicine/out of our minds, and we want in yours, let us in."