What's good folks! Hope you're still getting down to my mixtape of 2014, as well as checking the rest of my best of...lists. Unfortunately, a very disturbing situation is rounding off the year in hip-hop that simply must get addressed. First of all, before I get into the story and issue at hand, I LOVE hip-hop. Always have, always will be. I live, breathe, walk, talk, eat, sleep hip-hop. It's a major part of who I am. In spite of this well known fact about me, there are some things about my culture that really vehemently piss me off. One of which is bashing and bullying. What do I mean? Well let's get into it.
Earlier this year, I wrote a piece about how Grand Hustle artist, the Australian-born Iggy Azaelia was nothing more than a product of the machine. I didn't consider as superbly talented, and still don't, but as a human being, I still respect her, especially as someone that's just trying to make it in the music business. Yes, I consider her the Vanilla Ice of our generation, in spite of who she's signed to and signed with. However, in comes Azaelia Banks, a New York up-and-comer, who finally released her full-length debut Broke With Expensive Taste. She's more known for her Twitter beefs than any material released anywhere other than Vimeo or Vevo. This...chick (ahem) has been the biggest antagonist of Iggy. She has never been short on words when it came to her disinterest in her. Although she hasn't been the only one to have an issue with Iggy and how she's been defined as the new voice of hip-hop within suburban America, people like Banks and Snoop Dogg have gone out of their way to bully and harass Iggy. So much to the point of bringing race into the picture.
Throughout this past year, Brand Nubian member Lord Jamar considered whites in hip-hop as "guests in our house" and didn't feel like they belonged in hip-hop culture due to how historically Whites have used bits of our culture and claimed it for themselves like Elvis in Rock & Roll. Although I can see where Jamar was coming from in that sense, let's not get it twisted. The Beastie Boys are still considered one of hip-hop's most important acts and was definitely a big time player in the early beginnings of hip-hop. Simply put, you're BUGGIN if you don't own or haven't listened to their magnum opus Ill Communication, or even for that matter their landmark debut Licensed To Ill. They used to get off and on flack too about being White in hip-hop, even to the point where there was a brief division between the ghettos of America and the suburbs, where the Beasties clearly were having their biggest audiences from. I, personally, thought tracks like "Brass Monkey" and "Paul Revere" were as hip-hop anything Run-DMC and Doug E. Fresh were putting out. Fast forward to Rob Van Winkle (aka Vanilla Ice) and that was where the problem started. While the song was as dope as you could imagine at that time (do NOT front on me and say that you weren't dancing notoriously to the cut until you found out he was White), when it came to his background and how he came up in the game, he was a fraud the whole time. He was just pulling an Elvis. From there, artists like 3rd Bass had to prove that they weren't plastic rappers. They succeeded with their stellar album, The Cactus Album, and showed that White boys could in fact rhyme, and be real at the same time.
Fast forward to today's times where Iggy, sincerely talented or not, is still a part of hip-hop and does respect our culture. Use some type of sense: do you think T.I. would have anything whatsoever to do with someone that would deliberately disrespect his culture? So for Banks for just flat out attack her as well as Seattle hip-hop phenomenon Macklemore is not just unfair, it's hypocritical. In this day and age, racism is blatant and is more visible than it's been in many years, with us being the victims of it as usual. However, with this past weekend's tweet arguments between Banks and Iggy, seasoned vet Q-Tip chimed in on the history of hip-hop to give Iggy perspective into how hip-hop culture is subsequently Black culture. T.I. then threw his 150 characters plus into the situation and defended Iggy.
Now for my rant! You've been warned. This is just insane. What we have here is someone like Azaelia Banks, who can't get marketed or talked about in no other way except about who she had something to say about, doing whatever she can to have Iggy drop her mic. Maybe she is the new Vanilla Ice and T.I. is being suckered into it. The point is, bullying this girl just makes her look like the bigot, bully and angry woman Iggy has stated that she is. Plus this chick Banks has been throwing jabs at people like Action Bronson as well as Em simply because of a line Slim said in his breathtaking and defining Shady XV Cypher verse throwing shade at Alana Del Ray, who it turns out is a friend of Banks. There would be no problem with that but I can't help but see a pattern of her beefing with White emcees (I use that term loosely with Iggy). Is she another Lord Jamar that feels that Whites should just be "guests" in hip-hop? Let's get this straight. Eminem is one of the single greatest artists in the over thirty-five year history of recorded hip-hop. Em is likely better than your favorite emcee and usually bodies most people on their own song. He put to death the notion that Whites can't rhyme because artists like Marshall don't come along often. The self-proclaimed "Rap God" is special. He's a lyrical genius that will be remembered for his ability to chew up and spit out emcees and tracks at a moment's notice, plus he's a true student of the game who has highly influenced in his trailer park by the likes of Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Ice-T and even Treach of Naughty By Nature, in which he stated "Yoke The Joker" by NBN was the cut that influenced him the most to want to rhyme. Others Caucasian cats like Apathy, The High & Mighty, R.A. The Rugged Man, Ant from Atmosphere, and Yelawolf are monstrous emcees that could easily compete and maybe even outdo some of our own in this game. Let's stop using this race bullshit. Yes, artists like Iggy are being shoved down peopkle's throats as the new voice of hip-hop, as is Macklemore, but let's very briefly examine this. Have we ever had a White female emcee before, much less one that has made any rippling effect? Not a bit. Kreashawn's career came and went in under fifteen minutes. The hunt has always been on for a White female rhyme spitter to compete in this business. In comes the plan to create one. Atlantic Records, the parent company of Grand Hustle, saw possible big business in having hip-hop's first successful White female rapper on its roster. Well how does that happen? Give this girl a body, have her rhyme and sound like Nicki Minaj, give her catchy songs and have them flood your brainwaves with her tracks all over radio. Badda-bing, badda-boom! We have paydirt!
I'm fully about every race and gender showing up on the mic and exhibiting their talents. This is to promote hip-hop culture and if you're dope, you're just dope. We sure as hell don't have enough dopeness to run around in this business, at least not on a mainstream or commercial level. Hip-Hop should not at all be exclusive to ANYONE as long as they're doing justice to ones that paved the way for today's generation, as well as respect the culture by way of lyrics, beats, and the principles/origins of the culture. We're very short on students of the game and we're in dire need of them. No matter what race you are. From Latin artists like Kid Frost, Puerto Rican emcees like Fat Joe and the late great Big Pun, to even Asian artists like famed underground Dj, DJ Honda and former battle emcee turned Christian rapper Jin, Hip-Hop is for the world, just respect the culture and the ones that paved the way and in some cases died so that our culture could take over the world. Granted, Iggy said some things that were deemed "questionable", but in all fairness, this Banks chick is all over Twitter and doing interviews not just saying she's wack or the like, but by bringing race into it in a very bigoted way is crazy, especially when you're not even relevant enough to say anything about who should be successful and who shouldn't be. Don't forget, we have plenty of buffoonery and coonery within our own race to be a disgrace to hip-hop as well.
That's it for now people, but before I go, here's this week's cut of the week. This offering comes from longtime west coast vet and Compton giant, DJ Quik. His album, Midnight Life, was horrendously slept on this year. Although I didn't rate it in my top forty or in my honorable mentions, that's merely because I forgot about it, not for it being anything lackluster. This is truthfully his best album in years and puts me back in the days of Quik Is The Name, Safe & Sound, and Rhythm-Al-Ism. Here's "Pet Semetary". Get your Chuck Taylors out, and start your C-Walking! Until next time folks, Happy holidays!
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