My Hip-Hop Quarter Life Crisis
by Staff Editor
The year is 2003 and a ten-year old boy walks down the hallway of his Catholic elementary school reciting the lyrics to 50 Cent’s “Many Men,” as if they came from his own life story. He would go home and listen to the rest of Get Rich or Die Tryin’ as he played NBA Live on his Nintendo Gamecube. He thought this is how it would always be.
Twelve years later, that same boy has come to the realization that Mother Nature has ousted him from hip-hop’s key 13 to 21-year-old demographic. Unfortunately, I didn’t catch the signs until it was too late.
I watched BET’s 106 & Park and wondered why the audience looked so young. I would listen to the radio and celebrate the throwback joints. I even thought some of the latest dances were the dumbest things I’d ever seen.
I’m afraid I’ve gotten old and become a victim of my own nostalgia. Even the latest outputs from the artists I used to love sometimes come off as unrecognizable.
People get to a point in their musical maturity where they have to go, “That’s enough.” They’ve figured out that the music they enjoy the most is all behind them. It’s time to cut their losses, put their favorite tracks on a playlist and let it ride. Consider their musical appetite satisfied.
I really hope I’m not at that point yet. I’m only 22. There’s plenty of good music left for me to squeeze out of this culture before it’s time for me to put College Dropout on repeat and drive off into the sunset of seniority.
But sometimes I catch myself looking around wondering what the hell happened. There was a solid decade where pretty much anything that hit the streets was going to end up on my internal jukebox a week later.
A colleague once told me “hip-hop is a young man’s game.” Part of me wants to believe that. But every now and then I get a reminder that hip-hop is now in a place where it transcends race, gender, economic status and age. At least, during it’s best moments.
I look at how, even in their old age, some of hip-hop’s OG’s still carry it on their shoulders. Everything they do represents the genre that made them. Every smooth step from Snoop, every bop from Diddy, every head nod from Dre. If these living legends, well into their 40’s, can still love this game as much as they do, there’s more than enough to keep me around.
There’s still a whole lot of artists that come out with new content and give me that same feeling of satisfaction– it’s just no longer the majority.
Sure, there are some apparent shifts in the culture that rub me the wrong way. I’ll just take a moment to wave my cane in the air in disappointment until the next one comes along. But I won’t let myself get caught in the trap of condemning everything new in comparison to “the good ol’ days.” –
I grew up in the 90s with Tupac & Biggie taking over the airwaves, after the Wu just busted through, this piece of writing rings true for another “old” one who is constantly amazed at the beauty that hip-hop produces each generation. It’s okay to wonder, it’s cool to question, but I think it’s great to have hope that though some of the best music is behind you, there are even more amazing melodies, rhythms, & rhymes to rip through your mind, body, & soul to come.
Its so true, gets harder and harder to find new artists to relate too.
Fell in love with hip hop around 2000, so the prior 10 years was still fresh to me.
Around the mid-late 2000s I could see hip hop becoming more and more decisively pop, just as pop had become more decisively rap. Everyone was cranking their Soulja Boy and I was on the side like :/, I don’t fit in with this.
Fast forward 7 or 8 years later and it has continued in that direction, Artists who I had Idolised were putting out Mediocre at best albums, New artists were not connecting with me and by the time they had they faded into obscurity.
The longevity of the music has shortened, I guess a side effect of the shortening attention span of Western Culture. In the past 5 years the only artist I can say who has delivered anything i connect with 100% is Kendrick Lamar.
Im starting to hear that Yung Thug is connecting with the youth, I heard his chorus and verse (?) on that lifestyle song and could not take it seriously on any level, Which to me signifies a generation gap.
I am now that grandpa who cant understand or tolerate what “The Kids Nowadays” Listen too…and I’m Twenty Fucking Five.
The issue is radio not playing great hip hop anymore, 2014 had some of the best list of rap album In over 10 years but people missed it cause they think only the radio played artist are the only ones releasing music,
People seem to forget that music has always been and will always be a reflection of society and culture. I completely understand feeling that some of the latest hits are completely foreign, especially since I’m a 90’s baby myself. But that doesn’t mean it’s necessarily good or bad just because it’s different.
Most songs nowadays aren’t longer than 3 minutes, have catchy tunes that are easy to remember, contain lyrics about ass/money/drugs, and all other types of nonsense. BUT HELLOOOoooo…..look around. That’s the culture of a currently vain society. For the most part, we want everything fast, our attention spans are short, looks DO matter, and our phones are basically glued to our hands. Every now again an artist creates music that draws you in like a magnet. There are always exceptions that manage to sing to your spirit and not just your eardrums.
…fortunately music is forever evolving…just like society. Who knows what technological tunes will be hitting the airwaves in the future. Everybody twerkin’ now but by the looks of it ‘the robot’ might just be a dance to bring back. I have a 15 year old sister who sometimes helps keep her older-but-still-young-sister up to date with what all the “cool” kids are listening to now. For now I’ll stick to the music I’m familiar with but don’t worry…you can still catch me twerkin’ to the foreign stuff.