Examining Modern-Day Rap: From Notorious BIG to Lil Wayne

Listening to "Duffle Bag Boy" got me thinking about one of the biggest rappers around these days: a young man who calls himself "Lil Wayne." This artist, along with many other current rappers, has become very wealthy with his formula of what rap music has become today.

Personally, I think that Lil Wayne is very talented for many reasons. One reason that he is successful is based on his charisma alone. He is very easily marketable. One of my personal reasons why I think he is successful is due to the ability for his songs to put you in a good mood. A lot of his songs are good cruising music as well as club hits. In many of his songs the rapper makes little sense. His lyrics are almost never personal or deep. It appears to me that a lot of the rhyming is just that. There is very little connection between the two words he is rhyming.

Another artist is Lil Jon. If it weren't for his amazing ability to create something out of nothing the man would not be around. We are talking about a guy that transformed three words that we say everyday into a pop culture phenomenon. Lil Jon is so successful due to his work ethic. He is probably one of the hardest working rappers in the business today. He knows how to market himself. If you notice that if he isn't making a CD of his own he is being featured in something. The genius behind this is he creates his own success by making himself visible as much as he can. Doesn't matter that he isn't a very good song writer? Certainly not! There is a song where the "N" word was used close to a hundred times in one song. The music he produces beat wise is catchy fun and gets us energized. The music lyrically is one dimensional.

The other day I was thinking about why the music has gotten so meaningless lyrically.One good example is the a current hit called "Get Silly". This song is one of the worst songs lyrically I have ever heard and someone is getting rich off it. Why? One theory is that music isn't popular because it is good. It is popular because someone with connections in the industry hooked someone up along the way. They control what we hear on the radio and see on tv and tell us what we like and what we dont. The really greatly written artist such as Bone Thugs and Harmony are less marketable these days. Dont get me wrong they are still up there but if we based the decision on creativity and just sophisticated song writing none of these previous artists would be around. The thing that really is interesting to me is that a lot of the newer artist are talking about alot of the same subjects. The sad thing is that Bone Thugs are very skilled in constructing their songs in creative ways while the newer generation is almost just repeating others in a generic way. One of my favorite things about Bone Thugs is that their music is generally considered "Gangster Rap" where they talk about the life but later their music has really evolved into promoting a less violent society with songs like "Change The World".

It is argued that the current style was originally influenced from Notorious BIG's video, Hypnotize. The video seemed to start an image of showing off riches and spotlighting in fame.

It will be extremely interesting to see what happens to the Rap industry after people get tired of hearing about how much money rappers have, rims,grills,glamor and self admiration. Notice I didn't mention the excessive mention of shootings and gun related lyrics. The reason I omitted this was simply because this has been an element of rap from the beginning in various forms.

I would like to hear comments on anything in the post as well as ideas for the direction of the music could survive off of.