Dear Rapper, if you haven't started singing yet...
As a former rapper who was never tagged #commercial both in success and delivery, I can categorically make an assertion that the latter is more likely responsible for the outcome of the former.
It is not rocket science as it is common knowledge even, that the not so intelligent supporter of your music will tell you everytime he has the chance to; “do commercial so you can make money”, despite loving your “not commercial” tracks.
In my Odyssey of making music, rap music, hardcore-underground rap music to be specific, I have however seen cult followership to be the one of the very few exceptions that occur. Here you build a handful of fans that love your art to the point where they are religious about showing you support. This, I myself have experienced and witnessed over the decade. However fulfilling, still far from what commercial success is in terms of platinum sales and ringtone figures. The likes of Jay Electronica and MF Doom mostly fall into this category. Boogey can be found in this arena for the Nigerian audience.
But as far as the nature of rap music, sentiments are its core essence. Sentiments of which even other genres are envious. These sentiments range from the amazing simplicity found in the “looping” production of rap music to its sampling nature which triggers nostalgia for many to the depth of knowledge bestowed upon the ardent listeners to demography and very importantly geography.
These sentiments have created eras already within the lifespan of this quite young art form. Some would call rap, rebel music as it is significantly used for combat, in social terms. Public Enemy and NWA would employ it’s use politically and for racial issues. Eminem and DMX had their music directed more to personal issues to fight for their lives, with their wives, alter egos and inner demons. While majority of rappers fought invisible enemies, Tupac and Biggie actually took it to another level. In Nigeria, RuggedMan took the fight to some corporates and even his fellow rap mates.
Not to say rap didn’t address other issues like love, a subject of which we all know LL Cool J was the Professor Emeritus. But there was something different about rap music that made ego become the main and vital characteristic. This ego grew bigger in the golden era of rap. A time when the east coast of the USA was predominantly the go to place for rap music. The main characteristic of this era was knowledge. At this time every rapper had to sound very very sound. If we couldn’t learn a thing or two from your tracks or have memorable quotes, then you haven’t said anything, you were just like the rest of us, mortals. And this spread across the coasts to anywhere in the world where rap is being practiced.
For the sake of maintaining your career, it was essential that you made songs that were heavy on braggadocio, wordplay etc. we had to believe that you could rap. This has always been the core of rap music- make believe. Nigerian Rapper Modenine was well known for this. A show of Machoism that packed skill, lyricism and carefully designed cadence. Even the female rapper had to bring it like the male ones, even some did it better than their male counterparts, perhaps we have to listen to The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill again.
The rapper of this era made it their core duty to attack(lyrically) and terrorize(artistically) any other rapper whose main business was not to lyrically attack and artistically terrorize any other rapper… well you get the gist.
Rappers who were lyrically attacked and artistically terrorized were those who rap-sang or sang-rap most of their rhymes, had very few wordplay plus delivered easily decipherable lines (referred to as weak) and dedicated (even if it is 30% of) their albums to love and romantic relationships (when they were supposed to be making derogatory songs about female dogs). Mr. Will Smith and Mr. James Todd Smith fall well into this category of rappers.
The enemy of the rapper was tagged wack and was constantly abused and dissed even though he was commercially successful.
It was interesting to even see rappers go from dissing these so-called wack rappers to making references and comparisons to RnB singers, not because the singers were wack at singing too, but simply because it was the quickest way to tell a rapper he was wack and his music sounded like an RnB act. Singing was considered an art form that required less skill compared to rapping, that was how big the rapper ego was.
The RZA of the Wu Tang Clan said in an intro to one of their albums “A lot of niggas trying to take hip-hop and make that shit RnB”(hip-hop here can be used interchangeably with rap). Another reference is on MobbDeep’s Allustrious, Prodigy spits, making a reference to 90s RnB group LSG; “this ain’t Levert, Sweat and Jonny Gill, this is rap for real, something you feel”
This however was and is still the trend. Rap music makers or rappers are constantly in the business of running the next rapper down, it’s all subliminals and braggadocio until it’s fully cooked beef. The most recent is the Drake vs. Meek Mill.
I would wonder these days if all the wack rappers were eradicated by means of successfully convincing them to change the way they rap or quitting rap totally as a result of these stop-the-wack-rapper campaign songs we have had over the years, will our so-called fantastic rapper have anything else to say? Except become wack himself?
Is it the motive of rap music to self destruct? In the name of artistic evolution? Has the other part of the cycle begun? Where rapping goes fully back to singing?
In my personal observation, last year, there were fewer rap hits that topped the charts or ruled the airwaves as compared to the previous year and the year before.
What we had were rappers singing. Their hit songs weren’t really rap songs, they sang mostly. Drake, who is arguably the world’s favorite rapper now offered his “rap” and dance in his hit song Hotline Bling. There were rap songs with little singing that had some impact no doubt, but we can tell now that this era has begun to fade as a new sound is emerging. Kendrick Lamar made a great album that has to be acknowledged as it goes down in history to come out at a time that blacks in America needed the voice. However, almost half the album was so sung by the rapper that TPAB was constantly compared to D'Angelo’s Black Messiah. If that is not enough then we’ll throw in Future who is also considered a rapper, he also had a good run last year.
Down here in Nigeria, all the rappers topping the charts (which means most popular) too have been doing much singing. In fact, the biggest songs by the rapstars hardly have rap in them. From Olamide to Phyno, Lil Kesh to Mi to Ice Prince and the rest, everybody seems to be making more melody. It seems the more the melody, the more the money.
While there is still rap music here and there (depends on who is looking and who or what you are looking for), it looks like at some point, all these rap related genres and sub-genres will be mashed up into one newly formed genre. One that will perhaps service pop culture better as we move on.
So, dear rappers (local rappers, because of my reach), if you haven’t started singing yet and yet your life depends on it, you might want to consider doing so. Rumors have it that Tuface was once a rapper (intentional pun?). And if you are having difficulty with my standpoint, one of my favorite rappers sang through one-quarter of his debut album, so it’s Black on both sides after all.
N.B pls pardon the typos and grammatical errors. All subs are not intentional however direct the subliminal is… thanks for reading anyways.
XYZ