Do Rappers Really Rap Anymore?
Rap music is going through an interesting point of evolution, a point where the technical skill of rapping may no longer be relevant.
During the 90s to the late 2000s, this genre of rap music typically consisted of artists that were obsessed with showcasing their innovative flows, complex rhyme schemes and metaphors. Rap felt like it was about who could perform the art-form the best. It was about how dope are your lyrics? Are they saying something? Do you have bars that will make us replay the same line 2 to 4 times until we get the punchline? This is what the essence of rap music was. It was about rappers actually being great at rapping….at-least it felt that way.
Nowadays things have changed. The likes of Nas, JAY-Z, Black Thought, The Lox, Eminem, T.I., Lil Wayne & Lupe Fiasco and others who held the torch for lyricism over the last two decades have had to see that beloved torch flicker off as the new wave of artists of the late 2010s take the art form to a new direction. What is that new direction you may ask?
Well its melody, singing, crooning, call it whatever you want, but essentially its scrapping the typical approach of rap delivery for a more melodic delivery which leaves die-hard fans like myself to ask Do rappers really rap anymore?
Now don’t get me wrong, this new approach is great in its own right! Artists such as Lil Uzi Vert, Juice WRLD, Gunna, Polo G, Rod Wave, Lil Tjay, Lil Durk & Roddy Ricch amongst others have made music that has impacted Hip-Hop and are now dominating the new generation of rap music. However, one thing has to be highlighted…
they sing as much as, if not more than they rap.
It is true that several new rappers such as DaBaby, Meg Thee Stallion, J.I.D & Cordae are still somewhat holding the torch for lyricism. However, we may have reached a point where melody outweighs lyricism in modern-day rap.
Let’s put it this way. During the 2000s, albums such as The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, The Love Below by Andre 3K and 808s & Heartbreaks by Kanye West were seen as eccentric and innovative by the rap community.
That’s because people were not used to listening to a full album of a rapper…singing.
Nowadays, whenever a new rapper releases a project of them purely rapping… you almost get the same reaction as seeing a newspaper, or a record player, like ohh wow…. these still exist.
Times are changing.
We should make clear that when it comes to modern-day rap, there are different types of melodic rappers.
One type of melodic rapper is the one that has the talent of pulling off what I call a…
balancing-act — The ability to blur the lines between rapping and melody.
Take Lil Baby for example. On his introspective 2020 hit “Emotionally Scarred”
you would not be wrong to say he is rapping. However, you would also not be wrong to say he’s definitely using a melodic sound to deliver his verses. So he’s rapping…. but not really, he’s straddling the line between singing and rapping. It’s a balancing act.
The second type of melodic rapper is the one that fully commits themselves to the melody. Rappers like Juice WRLD, Rod Wave and Polo G will not break their flow down for nothing, because that’s simply what they’ve decided to do. Take Roddy Ricch for example.
Roddy is one of the newer rappers that’s making a name for himself by advancing what has already been rather unconventional in Hip-Hop which is the blatant attempt at singing throughout a song.
Honestly, the Hip-Hop community is very welcoming of this sound and why not? It’s a really catchy and addicting sound that pulls you to sing along. It’s undeniable when done right.
Essentially however, that’s all it is… catchy and addicting. It’s not lyrical or complex, it’s not full of wordy punchlines and syllables, it’s mostly melody. It seems that nowadays rappers have decided to lean on a different metric for musical success that was used to be during the 90s to 2010s.
replay value
Basically asking is the song or album catchy enough for me to place it on my day-to-day playlist? Would I like to hear it in the club or in the car with my friends? This is not to say this criteria was never a criteria to objectively judge a rap artist, but it definitely was never the only one.
“I’m from where n****s argue all day about who’s the best MCs, Biggie, Jay-Z or Nas?” — Jay-Z on ‘Where I’m From’
‘Where I’m From’ is from Jay-Z’s 1997 album ‘In My Lifetime Vol. 1’ which came out during rap’s golden age. Jay was outlining the frequent barbershop conversation of who was the best rapper, during a time when rap was not being judged mostly on replay value. They had the flow, the punchlines, the wordplay, the story-telling ability, and the technical ability to rhyme words that aren’t even supposed to rhyme. This made for really interesting, passionate, and sometimes heated debates about who was the best rapper.
“It’s a tribute to how deeply felt hip-hop is that people don’t just sit back and listen to the music — they have to break it down, pick the lyrics apart, and debate the shit” — Jay-Z
That’s what made them rappers! So as a rap fan today who might be reading this, ask yourself. Is what Jay-Z was saying an aged convention in the world of hip-hop, or is it still relevant today? Rap isn’t going in the wrong direction, but it’s definitely worth thinking about the diversion rap is taking from its roots.
