The legendary Gil Scott Heron told us that the revolution would not be televised, but dude never mentioned anything about vlogging. After watching the Malice of the Clipse on his appropriately titled vlog maliceoftheclipse.com, I could not help but have grand dreams, if not visions for the future.
Malice Video Blog 1 from Malice of the Clipse on Vimeo.
Homie is not the first rapper to state the obvious - “I either never have, or no longer do, sell crack all day long” - however, he is the most recent. What makes this more interesting is the fact that Malice, along with his brother and partner in rhyme Pusha T, have damn near perfected their craft in "crack rap." Some would say murder music was to Mobb Deep as crack rap is to the Clipse.
The whole thing got me to thinking... what if several other rappers came out and said the same thing? That, in effect, the stuff that they were rapping about was a lie. (See future post on why telling all truth on wax is a ridiculously unreasonable and incredibly limiting and unfair expectation). What would happen? Would fewer aspiring rappers feel the need to rap about drugs/excess/etc? Would fans keep buying their music? If the former happened, record execs would still be happy...right? Would they actually begin to seek out talented artists? Would fewer artists aspire to or feel compelled to write exclusively about excess and materialism?
Its fun to dream.
Well Written.
ReplyDeleteGood Look.
ReplyDeleteThis kind of stuff gets me excited. Hip-hop is at a crossroads and can go in any direction. I'm hoping that it stays popular enough for record companies to continue to invest in it but not so much that they stifle creativity.
ReplyDeleteOn a different but related note. I've been hearing/reading a lot about the comeback of the concept album. It cracks me up because from the 90s on most hip-hop albums have been concept albums.