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| Photo: NYmag.com |
A new breed of hip hop artists have burst onto the scene over the course of the last 10 years. The usual stories of drug dealing, shoot outs and other gangster-esque raps have been diluted. Since Kanye West a new generation of MCs and sounds have emerged, sparking a new movement that millions embrace but the establishment still rejects, especially in New York, Hip Hop's birthplace
Since the mid-nineties, a certain strain of hood-glam rap has been perfected in New York: Guys like DJ Premier constructed unflinching beats that made you want to whip through Brooklyn nodding meaningfully to dudes hanging out on corners. Guys like Nas rapped about “Bullet holes left in my peepholes” and made you want to check the front door. This marriage of sound and content worked so well that many local rappers have stuck to it rigorously. The problem is that honoring the way things have always been done has invited a certain uninnovative fundamentalism. On the intro to his 2007 track “Hip-Hop,” Brooklyn’s Joell Ortiz summed up the insular mentality of the city’s rap revanchists: “This is hip-hop,” he spits out. “This is Carhartt jackets. Timberland boots, unlaced. This is Champion hoodies. Chicken wings and French fries. RIP pieces on the handball courts.”[NYMag]
