Nick Larson
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Editor’s note: This article features quotes from various rap songs, which contain some explicit language. The views expressed in this column do not necessarily represent the editorial coverage of Mustang News.
Everyone has music they love. Everyone also has music they hate. Personally, I hate it all.
In this column, I’m going to explain why rap music sucks.
Rap music sucks.
Full disclosure: I love rap music. It’s what I listen to most and know the most about. That being said, it sucks.
Rap music is meant to be lyrically driven, a steady beat behind the powerful voice of a poet who speaks to an audience entranced by each melodic syllable escaping the speaker’s mind.
Unfortunately, we’ve reached a point where this is no longer the case.
The days where Biggie Smalls spoke about his struggles of growing up in a rough neighborhood as a fat, poor black child who was forced to sell crack cocaine are gone.
The days where 2Pac spoke of violence in inner cities and societies with overwhelming racism are gone.
The days where O.T. Genasis speaks about his love for cocaine, which he got for a very cheap price from his plug are now.
I can’t even trash the origins of rap. The popular OGs of the genre — Run DMC, Wu-Tang Clan, Grand Master Flash — I’m too young and too white to go down that road.
However, rap music of the past decade or so has been simply terrible.
Back to Young Thug. My god, if I have to listen to his mumblings alongside Rich Homie Quan about their “Lifestyle” anymore, I may have an aneurysm. You literally cannot understand one word the guy says. It’s “… something … something … lifestyle.” I honestly wonder where they get the money to begin with. Consider me baffled.
Tangent for a second.
Rappers’ names versus their real names. Probably the most entertaining thing ever.
- Snoop Dogg = Calvin Broadus
- Young Thug = Jeffrey Williams
- LL Cool J = James Todd Smith
- Drake = Aubrey Graham
- Ludacris = Christopher Brian Bridges
- Busta Rhymes = Trevor Smith
- Common = Lonnie Lynn
- Lil Jon = Jonathan Smith
Anyway, you get the point.
A big feature of rap songs from the last few years is faint subtext in the background, perfected by 2 Chainz when he says “truuu” or “yeaaaahh” after a line or leading up to a verse. And once you notice it, that song will never be the same. I can’t listen to a rap song without hearing that echo, and now neither can you. “I ain’t got no type. *nah*” – Rae Sremmurd. You’re welcome.
Rap music these days leans on comedic relief rather than artistic value. People like Lil B, Riff Raff, Too $hort, Yung Lean, Flap Jack, Migos — these artists, despite thinking they’re legitimately good, are popular because of their mediocrity.
Let’s take a look at today’s stars.
Drake
He’s probably taken over as the most popular rapper alive.
He’s everywhere, lint-rolling his pants at Toronto Raptors games pretending the players care that he’s there in his grey long sleeve shirt, black jeans and untied sneakers. Aubrey is perpetually stuck in adolescence. He is always talking about girls and how they hurt his feelings or how he’s not the guy he used to be and other BS like that. Wheelchair Jimmy is so soft, he is constantly ranked the softest rapper alive by his peers.
Oh yeah, and Drake is awfully liberal with the n-word considering he’s a half-white Canadian Jew.
Back to singing: You know your songs aren’t rap when the Arctic Monkeys and Florence and the Machine can cover them and make them sound a million times better.
Drake sounds like he needs a hug all the time. Why is he so sad?
Maybe it was his late teenage years when he was forced to work on a television show in which he was confined to a wheelchair (but in reality still had full-functioning legs and made a solid amount of money). Being from an upper-middle class background, I can’t even imagine his struggle.
I could go on for pages about this dude, but I’ll end it with this: Why is he trying to make Toronto “the 6?” No one gets it or even calls it that. I looked it up and apparently it has something to do with the area codes. I don’t know. But all through his most recent album I had no idea what the hell “the 6” was, and I still really don’t.
Stop trying to make “6” happen, Aubrey. It’s not going to happen.
“I better find your loving, I better find your heart/I bet if I give all my love, then nothing’s going to tear us apart.” – Sensitive Drake (Find your Love)
Has there ever been a more delusional man in existence? Yeezus’ concept of reality is on par with the likes of Kim Jong Un and the Westboro Baptist Church. This dude legitimately thinks he’s a god. He named his child after a direction on a compass and/or a failed airline company. If you were going to make a joke about the name of Kimye’s baby before it was born, “North” would be at the top of that list.
Dave Chappelle tells a story of when Kanye was on his show years ago before he was famous or had even dropped an album. He was just on the show to perform with Common. He says they were showing Kanye edits of the show when his phone rings, and his answer was as typical as ever. “Cuz my life is dope, and I do dope shit.”(skip to 5:30 when you follow the link)
Perhaps Kanye’s most famous song, “Gold Digger,” warns about marrying for money, but of course Kanye went out and married a woman who’s known for being a gold digger. The best part is Kanye knows what she is and now refuses to play that song ever.
Hey, at least he’s helping Paul McCartney blow up.
Only Kanye can take someone like Paul McCartney, put him on a track and not even let him sing.
Everything about Kanye in 2015 is the worst.
“I just talked to Jesus. He said, ‘What up, Yeezus?’” – Kanye (I am a God)
Weezy signed to Cash Money Records before his balls dropped. His education level is so low because he stopped going to school at 14 years old. It all makes sense because a Lil Wayne song is a series of similes, and that’s it.
Similes are the one thing Lil Wayne learned in school, rendering him unable to put together an actual sentence.
Remember when Wayne tried to become a rock star? I forgot about that — amnesia.
He had his first child when he was 15 — quince.
He has four children from four different women — quadfecta.
The worst part of Wayne is so many other rappers have followed his crappy style — Twitter.
“Safe sex is great sex/ better wear a latex/you don’t want that late text/ that ‘I think I’m late’ text.” – hypocrite Lil Wayne [Lollipop (remix)]
Jay-Z
Ugly. Overrated. Terrible rapper. Great businessman. Who cheats on Beyonce? Idiots, and probably Jay-Z. I can never forgive him for doing songs with Linkin Park, because Linkin Park sucks, but that’s for another article.
“I got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one.” — Cool guy Jay-Z (99 problems)
“You little stupid-ass bitch I ain’t fucking with you.” So eloquent. The worst part of Sean, though, is Ariana Grande.
Tyga
Tyga is a rat-faced, tatted version of Jar Jar Binks who is currently (allegedly) having sexual relations with a minor spawned from the worst family in existence. Tyga takes fads and turns them into songs and creatively names them after what that fad is, i.e. “Molly” and “Hookah.”
“Got your grandma on my dick, girl you know what it is.” -Tyga (Rack City)
Macklemore can rap. He can. But how in the world was “Thrift Shop” a thing?
The man Instagrams his sick sneakers all the time. No way in hell he still shops at thrift stores. And what did him in for me was his Instagram of a text he sent to Kendrick Lamar after he beat K.dot for best rap album at the Grammys (somehow “good kid, m.A.A.d City,” possibly one of the best rap albums of all time, didn’t win) saying how Kendrick should have won and stuff:
That’s dumb, man. Send that text, that’s fine. But be classy. Why post that on social media? That’s asking for unnecessary attention.
“When I was in the third grade, I thought that I was gay.” -Macklemore (Same Love, actually a well-written song about a real issue. Props.)
2 Chainz
I could write a novel about 2 Chainz, and I may just do that one day.
Not ever has one man who is clearly intelligent — he graduated from college with a 4.0 GPA — sounded so consistently dumb. He is also the most uncreative person ever when it comes to his name. For a long time, he went by the name “Tityboi” which, in my opinion, is the best rapper name ever. But when Tityboi reached his 30’s and hadn’t really had any success, he switched it to 2 Chainz, and God knows what the hell that means, other than the literal meaning of him wearing two chains a lot.
“She got a Big Booty so I call her Big Booty.” — 2 Chainz (Birthday Song)
I could go on, but you get the picture.
What might not suck
Kendrick Lamar is a damn genius.
He is a poet. His songs mean something. No gimmicks. The aforementioned “good kid, m.A.A.d City” was recently followed up by “How to Pimp a Butterfly,” which is amazing. The social implications of his words are deeper than anyone else can convey through a song.
Now past the “Camp” days of one-liners, he put together a project called “Because the Internet,” an introspective look at society and what people have become in the midst of technology. His recent double-release of “Kauai,” an album filled with beach-y white songs, was made available for purchase, while the second part, “STN MNTN,” was released for free online and features a harder, stronger rap-based core of songs. Again, a commentary on society these days in America.
Wiz Khalifa
Being the voice of a generation of young stoners and … Just kidding.
Wiz is the biggest piece of garbage there is. I honestly don’t know how those legs even hold him up. He is as stupid looking as Tyga, minus the statutory rape. How many songs can you make about weed?
Yeezus Christ.