justdizle
8:13 PM - 21 October, 2007
i love that song...crank dat... yes i said it...i love jay dilla too (rip) but hey, we used to be youth too, read this... TRUE STORY
by Jeff Sledge
"The Good Old Days, The Good Old Days... Everyone is talking about the good old days"—Gladys Knight
First off, I’m gonna start this by saying that I've been working in the music business since 1989. I have been a rap head all my teenage and adult life. I'm a born and raised NY'er. Slick Rick is in my top 5 mc's of all time. I A/R'ed Return Of the Boom Bap (KRS-ONE), Midnight Marauders (TRIBE), Iron Man (Ghostface's first album), and signed Keith Murray, amongst a whole bunch of other shit. I feel like I need to say all of that before anyone tries to question my positions (no homo).
I HATE the state of NY rap music today. I hate it because it's corny and boring as shit. Everyone is waiting for things to come BACK but time doesn’t move backwards. Ever. Not even for rap music. NY used to be the most progressive place for rap music. But since about 2000 it's been in a tie for the most unprogressive place for rap (tied with the southern California, where they still make G Funk records).
There are several factors for this terrible state we're in. Today boys and girls, I'm going to discuss two of them:
NY RADIO AND NY CLUBS
The radio and club scene in NY is terrible. The main reason I say that is because NY radio and NY clubs play waaaaayyyyyy too many old songs all the time. This is pretty much the only market in the U.S. of A where this happens. You hear Biggie, Mobb Deep, and old Jay songs in rotation on the radio like they just came out. When you go to a club in NY it's guaranteed that there will be either an extensive old school set or you'll basically just hear "classics" all night long. What this does is stunt the creativity of the youth. All they hear is old music so that's what they end up recreating. Most of the demos I get from NY kids are slow and grimy and sound like they would've come out in 1994. And they are always SHOCKED(!), SHOCKED, that no one outside of their borough likes their music.
Meanwhile the rest of the country is moving forward and progressing in another direction. Now, I'm not saying that everything coming out today is good or high quality because that would be a lie. BUT what I am saying is at least the youth around the country (i.e. outside of NY) are doing their own thing and trying to create their own sound. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But at least they are trying. That comes from radio and clubs in other markets playing new music all the time. So kids end up creating music that has a new twist to it instead of recycling. I have more confidence that the next classic rap album will come out of the South before the East Coast.
Think about it...Rap kids in NY still get excited when Mobb Deep or Nas comes out with a new album. I mean no disrespect to either one of those artists (I'm a fan of both) but those two are artists that have been making records for almost 15 years now. NY'ers have had no one come out in the new millennium to be excited for. At some point it's not them; it's us.
RAP'S NEW GENERATION.......GAP
The other issue is rap, in general, is suffering from a generation gap. Most of the people who are in power positions in the rap game—be it execs, writers, radio programmers, or television people—they/we all come from a certain age and perspective. Many of the same artists get major press, many times undeservedly so. They get huge pushes from labels based on old successes. Meanwhile, an artist like Soulja Boy can seemingly sneak up out of nowhere and make a major impact. The funny thing is Soulja Boy didn't come from nowhere. He has been around on YouTube for about 2 years creating a groundswell of kids who are riding for him. His success reminds me of No Limit or Cash Money, where the hip-hop intelligentsia had no idea what or who those crews were when they busted on the scene because they were so far up their own asses that they were blindsided by those labels’ success. Ignoring the fact that they had been selling serious amounts of records and doing tons of shows before they got major label deals.
In this case, the elder statesmen are ignoring the youth. They dismiss their music as silly and juvenile while the youth galvanize themselves and support their artists. The conversation I have with some of my peers about an artist like Soulja Boy follows the same bullshit that the old music execs used to say about rap music.
Rap is a young man's game. Even all the greats made their best albums when they were either teenagers or in their early twenties. The youth movement is what drives hip-hop and instead of being shunned and dismissed as bullshit, it should be nurtured.
That's all for now Boys and Girls. Till next time.
Jeff Sledge currently holds the weighty title of Senior Director, Jive Records. Do yourself a favor, DO NOT send him your demo if it's slow and grimy.
The BODEGA™ sends a special, special, special thank you to Mr. Sledge for contributing his two-cents... nice use of 'no homo' there, old man!
