Droppin Science

I sat waiting for some seed of inspiration to germinate in me like an alien fetus in the womb of a redneck woman. No current literary work I was reading provided me with the necessary catalyst to write; I had become convinced that Virgil's Aenead could suck my ass, and my page already has far too many Reichstag references to merit talking about The Man in the High Castle. Then it hit me like a sorority girl looking at her credit card bill. A subject all the suburban white kids who read this page could relate to-why rap sucks today.

Sure, we remember our elementary/middle school glory days, listening to Snoop, Busta Rhymes, and Wu-Tang. And we can do a fairly good job of pretending we remember the times of NWA, Ice-T, and Run-DMC. So we can be assured that rap wasn't always so bad. But a slow degeneration took place, and now we're stuck with Nelly and his mentally ill St. Lunatics, as well as many other helium-voiced faceless thugs yapping about the number of cavities they have filled with platinum. Presumably, this is to conduct electricity to keep their heart beating after taking too many ecstacy pills, but we cannot be sure.

Rap has always been materialistic, since wealth is a sign of success, but when did the whimsical tales of making money through crack sales and mugging take second place to selling mold-cast albums where the artist is pictured with several lowriders underneath his own glittering, bejewelled logo? And its not like their sales are based on actual rap prowess, as none of the Cash Money Millionaires would be fit to do battle with KRS-One. Nor is their apparent financial gain derived from true assets. Since record labels take a significant cut of record proceeds, theres probably alot of gold-plated Escalades being bought on credit, which isn't too different than the situation with your mother and her Grand Caravan.

These rappers have little grasp of logical arguement. Eazy-E could make a case against Dr. Dre that Socrates could not refute. But, as shown as in this example, we can see that today's MCs can't even define terms. In Black Rob's hit song "Like Whoa", the listener is initially unaware of what "like whoa" could mean. Mr. Rob rightfully chooses to tell you at the outset that "anything ill you see is like whoa". But, what does ill mean? To discover that, we must dig into the fossils of rap history, such as Run-DMC's song "You Be Illin". In this song, the word "ill" has a negative connotation, describing situations varying from ordering a Big Mac at Kentucky Fried Chicken to eating dog food. So although Mr. Rob describes what might be thought to be positive events as "like whoa"/ill, he in actuality is degrading the very things he promotes.

Hip-hop, rap's hippie cousin, generally has tighter flow and less radio airplay, macho posturing, and talent for making decent beats. But even this genre has been inundated by styleless MCs. Just look at all the white kids sporting Ecko Unlimited gear freestyling at the next high school party you attend. Not to mention all the so-called "intelligent" lyricists with more mentions of their third eye than the Bhagavad-Gita. As a specific case, look at the career of Canibus. His first album was humorous and enjoyable, but who wants to hear his tales of one sticking cucumbers up one's ass which are so prominently featured on "2000 B.C."?

Too many of the old school of rap are returning to try to milk their former popularity. Plenty of hoez shake their gelatinous asses to the new Dre albums, but you can bet they were listening to NKOTB when Dre still had class. Plus, there's more postmortem videos with 2pac and Biggie than Christ himself could hope for.

There's still some bright spots in the rap game: The communism-loving Coup, the codeine-loving Three 6 Mafia, and the roots-loving Roots still release quality fare. And you can bet that up and coming stars are still slanging dope in the shady ghettos of America. But, for the most part, we have no choice but to disavow all the sucker MCs and become ravers instead.