Rules of Rap

My parents seem to be obsessed with getting places extremely early. I was always the first one on the soccer team to arrive at the field, the guy who waited at the mall for what seemed liked hours for my friends to arrive. So of course, I arrived at LAX over two hours before my flight back to New Orleans after Christmas break took off. After making it through security in less than fifteen minutes, I was left with tons of time to kill, a dead computer (and no charger), and an iPod that wouldn't turn on. So, I decided to do something I seem to never do--read. Making my way to the nearest convenience store, I spotted XXL magazine with a commanding picture of Dr. Dre on the cover and the subtitle "Detox is Coming." Couldn't believe it (and I still have my doubts after reading the article).

After reading the interview with Dre, I flipped through the magazine attempting to find an interesting article. After countless adds for blinged-out watches and expensive liquor, I came to a page covered in pictures of little candy pieces emblazened with the words "Pop Rap" and the names of several questionably hip-hop artists like Timbaland, Flo Rida, and Pitbull. The graphic instantly caught my attention and so I decided to read the short accompanying article entitled "Candy Shop."


Paul Cantor doesn't really give his opinion in this article, but rather uses the examples of Flo Rida and Pitbull to point out that while traditional hip hop is going through the doldrums, feel-good "pop rap" is taking over the world. Personally, I think that because this form of overly commercialized hip-hop is so readily available and popular, music listeners around the world are exposed an increasingly less diversified forms of music. Furthermore, because people are being only exposed to the popular music that rules the radiowaves, they don't realize how less musically and intellectually stimulating "pop rap" is compared to real, traditional hip hop.



In the cover story with Dr. Dre, Dre breaks down modern hip-hop to being simply too happy, saying:

"I always say that I think music itself goes up and down. It gets, like, happy and disco, then it gets back to dirty and grimy. I guess people start getting tired of both and it just goes back and forth. I realy believe now that it's been happy long enough."

I'll end this post with one my favorite hip hop verses of all time, the second verse on Page Kennedy's "Rules of Rap," performed by Elzhi from the legendary hip hop group, Slum Village: