Before I get into this, a recent reflection (at least I think it’s recent) of Eminem rocking a Paris/The Devil Made Me Do It shirt surfaced which caught many who don’t really care for Em or listen to his music off guard.
I explained to them Em is a true student of hip hop music. His love for artists like LL, Treach of Naughty by Nature, Redman and Rakim is well documented. He is not one of those weirdos that think hip hop began with Biggie and 2pac. I remember well reading an article in which he mentioned how he used to listen to X Clan and thought they were racist which made me chuckle.
Anyways on his song Fall, Em goes at hip hop legend, let me repeat that, hip hop LEGEND Lord Jamar with the following lyrics…
“And far as Lord Jamar, you better leave me the hell alone
Or I’ll show you an Elvis clone
Walk up in this house you own, thrust my pelvic bone
Use your telephone and go fetch me the remote
Put my feet up and just make myself at home
I belong here, clown, don’t tell me ’bout the culture
I inspire the Hopsins, the Logics, the Coles, the
Seans, the K-Dots, the 5’9″s, and oh
Brought the world 50 Cent, you did squat, piss and moaned
But I’m not gonna fall… bitch!”
Now….while I can appreciate the reference to Brand Nubian’s classic Love Me or Leave Me Alone, he can chill with the white hip hop savior shit and did he really say Lord Jamar did squat!? Em is smarter than that. Em may have inspired many of those artists he mentioned but he is also the father of the pill poppin’ mc and this newer drug culture in hip hop, much of which he seems not to care too much for in various verses off his new album. Lord Jamar, an affiliate of the heavily influential Native Toungues crew which included other influential acts like A Tribe Called Quest, Jungle Brothers and De La Soul to name a few, brought dead prez, a much more important hip hop act than 50 Cent, D12 and Obie Trice to Loud records who as Lord Jamar mentioned on my show created some of the most revolutionary music in hip hop to date, the type of music that adds on to the culture of hip hop and instills a sense of racial pride, brings credibility to the music d’void of all the disrespecting of women and genocide on wax, just as Brand Nubian did before them. What exactly does Em with a lot of his shock rap and 50 Cent with his tired gangsta, bitch, ho, I get money, nigga nigga nigga rap inspire or inspired? Most of these new wack rappers every body can’t stand (especially the ones with winy wack ass irritating voices like Em) guess what? They grew up listening to and were inspired by Eminem and 50 Cent! Artists that listened to and studied Brand Nubian and dead prez nowhere near as wack, in fact they tend not to be wack period! Chew on that shit. Reminds me of a KRS line, “People that buy KRS-One goin places. People that buy your shit, they catchin cases!”
Take Eminem and 50 Cent out of the equation when it comes to hip hop like they never existed, guess what? Hip hop is ok, maybe better. Take Brand Nubian, Native Tongues, dead prez and other contributions Lord Jamar made to hip hop like his 5% Album and hip hop is missing something very special along the same lines as other great black artists in music like Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Michael Jackson, Prince, 2pac, Public Enemy, Bob Marley etc etc etc. I can’t put a 50 Cent or Eminem in that tradition of great artists. Seriously, what makes Eminem and 50 Cent special? Is Eminem a great mc? YES! But there are many great mcs, what makes him special? Because he white!? Gotta come with more than that. So you brought the type of music rapping about killing ya moms and in a video burying her to hip hop culture (wtf!?) But that’s not how we get down in the environments hip hop was birthed out of. Keep that trailer park trash shit to ya self. Even though we may have beef with our mothers we don’t air it out on song like that. A great example of how we get down is Pac’s Dear Mama in which he says, “even as a crack fieeeend mama, you always was a black queeeeeen mama!” Just one of many examples as to why Em will never be as great or important to hip hop as an artist like 2pac. We love our mothers, I fast and pray no brother in hip hop in front of a sellout crowd asks them ,”if you got beef with your parents put your hands in the air.” Something Em has done, we don’t need that in hip hop. Keep that energy.
I can go in more about what you can expect to hear in hip hop music vs what is not welcome but I already went over that when I wrote a review on the shows we had Lord Jamar as a guest here. You say Get Rich or Die Trying was a hip hop classic? Whatever, you know what was better by a group Lord Jamar introduced to the world? How about Get FREE or Die Tryin’?
Em’s new album Kamikaze is dope as well, but you know what album which had the same title I enjoyed more that flips that speed rap much better? Check it…
Lastly, I already built on the importance of stic man’s (again, an artist that Lord Jamar introduced to the masses) Workout album on a previous show here. But what I wanted to build on next is the advancement of hip hop culture. At first I felt God Hop was the next wave but it was just too many heads co opting the term that don’t necessarily live out it’s principles as with hip hop. So now we have something much more concrete and defined with what stic is bringing with Fit Hop which is defined as….
“FitXHop is a rising new sub-genre of hip hop with themes of health fitness and well being founded by dead prez ‘s Stic.man with the release of his critically acclaimed full length album THE WORKOUT. FitXHop is a vision for a refreshing alternative to counter balance the current negative, drug promoting hyper consumerism wave of mainstream contemporary music, providing street certified affirmation, and inspiration for healthy transformations.”
So pretty much if an artist is not coming with any of that above they cannot lay claim to Fit Hop. This is some truly next level shit, this is what an artist Lord Jamar introduced is bringing to the culture. So 50 Cent made the 50th Law which reads like it borrowed much from Supreme Understanding’s How to Hustle and Win. Well you know what’s better than the 50th Law? Check it……
In closing, in a culture that birthed the likes of LL, Rakim, Chuck D, KRS One, Lauryn Hill, Kane, Outkast, Black Thought, Common, Paris, Wise Intelligent, Brand Nubian, 2pac, Nas, Wu Tang, Guru, etc etc etc, an artist like Em will NEVER be the greatest. I don’t care how good of an mc he is, AN ARTIST LIKE HIM with his content will NEVER be the greatest, that is all.
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