When you hear hip-hop, all that matters is the feeling: Does it have a good beat? Does the rapper's voice sound good? Can you dance to it? Listening is a different story: How are the lyrics? How do the vocals interact with the beat? What samples can you pick out?
Rap songs from the "golden age" ('80s and '90s, roughly) usually told a story. For the longest time, I didn't know what Biggie was saying on "Juicy" when he rapped, "smoking weed and bamboo, sipping on Private Stock." But it was OK because knowing that he was getting high and drinking didn't really add anything to the song.
"Juicy" is easily one of the top 10 rap songs ever, but that's not why it's a great example of a song you have to listen to; to really get the song, it's crucial to hear what the Notorious B.I.G. is saying. The song describes the differences between his (then-current) high-rolling lifestyle and his pre-fame poverty. And the lyrics are classics. Walk into any crowded space and shout, "It was all a dream/I used to read ‘Word Up' magazine,'" and I guarantee that someone will join in. 100 percent of the time.
But for the most part, they don't make songs like "Juicy" anymore, and listening to modern commercial hip-hop is a tiring pursuit. Lil Wayne, your favorite rapper and (sometimes) mine, is the king of free association. Find me a Weezy song that has a full story arc. Or follows some logical thread from one line to the next. Can't do it.
Now don't get me wrong: I love Lil Wayne, but listening — really listening — to him spit is mental aerobics. He leaps from one line to the next, often connected by nothing more than a huge stretch of a slant rhyme, stitching together mind-boggling tapestries of amazing similes and metaphors.
One of Wayne's most famous lines addresses this directly: "And when I was five my favorite movie was ‘The Gremlins'/Ain't got s--- to do with this but I just thought that I should mention." This is from a song on "Da Drought 3" (2007). It's preceded by the line, "Relying on rappers, but in the kitchen I'm a chemist," and followed by, "You looking for divine and a little intervention," and it actually has nothing to do with anything. But it sounds great in the song, and that's all that matters. If you hear it, it's a hilarious line. If you're listening, though, it's almost jarring.
We've been accused of being an ADD generation, and our hip-hop reflects this. You don't need any attention span at all to listen to 99 percent of what's on the radio today. Weezy caters directly to this.
But this is no lament from "golden age" hip-hop. I love this stuff. I love all of it or I wouldn't be writing this.
As usual the exception is coming from Kanye West. If you didn't know, he's been releasing a new song every Friday for the past month or so through his G.O.O.D. Music label ("G.O.O.D. Fridays"). Every track has been a ridiculous posse cut featuring the likes of Jay-Z, Mos Def, Pusha T, RZA and everyone else you love, and nearly every song has clocked in at over five minutes. And they're all great.
It's thanks to artists like Kanye and Pusha T that the roots of hip-hop aren't being forgotten in the mainstream. If you don't know Pusha, half of Clipse, he's basically rap's MVP right now; he does the metaphors but manages to string them together anyway. His verses are awesome in the classical definition of the word.
And when Yeezy and Weezy collaborate? Magical.
As Mos Def raps, "We're alive in amazing times."
As Gucci Mane raps, "Burr! Burr! Burr!"
