The Hip-Hop We Fell in Love With is Long Gone

Millennial Views on Our Beloved Art Form

The first album I ever purchased was Get Rich or Die Trying. I remember walking into Best Buy with a little extra sauce in my step, overly excited to clasp the plastic CD cover between my skinny fingers. My mom kept telling me to slow down as I zoomed between the aisles like a maze, slightly jogging past game consoles, decorative gaming controllers, fancy bluetooth speakers and the latest Blu Ray DVD players to hit the shelves. Wireless speakers and Blu Ray DVD players were revolutionary pieces of tech at the time.

Back in those days, streaming didn’t exist. You actually had to leave your house in order to gain access to new music that wasn’t on the radio. Well legally, that is. There were a few sites like LimeWire and Napster that allowed people to listen to and download music for free. But if you were truly a fan of music, like many of us were and still are, there was immense pleasure in the experience of grabbing a highly sought after record from the shelf and holding it in your hand. The gorgeous experience of taking a trip to the store for the sake of supporting art was one that I think so many of us likely took for granted since it was assumed that the interpersonal process of music consumption would last forever. If not eternal, then at least far longer than it did. Who knew that within a decade, everything would change?

When I held 50 Cent’s first album in my hands, I felt as though I were holding an infinity stone. His songs and music videos had already taken over national radio and television stations prior to the album release, with assistance from a juggernaut team in Dr. Dre, Eminem and Jimmy Iovine. During a time when artists such as Jay-Z, Nas, Nelly, Missy Elliott, DMX and Ja Rule - just to name a few, were building upon their already legendary careers and continuing to dominate in their respective regions, that album demanded priority over everything else.

It didn’t matter who was releasing music that same week or month. It didn’t matter whose single was climbing the charts or whose music video was making its rounds. The G-Unit freight train took off and everyone else simply had to clear the way. The only thing that mattered was memorizing as many lyrics and stanzas as you could by the end of the week, so that you would feel like the coolest kid on the block each time a car passed by playing any one of the 19 songs on it. The only thing that mattered was feeling included, as if you were part of something much larger than yourself. As if you were part of a cultural movement you couldn’t see with your eyes, but undoubtedly felt in your heart.

That’s the era of Hip-Hop that I’m from. The era where it took most artists practically their entire lifetime to create a cohesive project. When they made sure to pour out their hearts and souls into the microphone, leaving everything they had in the booth, hoping there’d be an audience out there to receive their intended message. I’m from the era that had to put effort into going outside and purchasing said music, forming a subtle adventure that created a deeper emotional attachment to the art and the artist, without us even noticing said attachment because we were too busy having a marvelous time during the process. The element of effort was a factor that bridged so many gaps for us.

Economically, politically, generationally and more. We all can remember that feeling, that trip to the store, that first time we broke off the plastic packaging wrapped tightly around the square case containing the CD. The cover jacket that came with every CD - detailing the writers, producers, artwork and creative process behind the construction of each and every album. The first song that came on once you popped the CD into the stereo. Most of all, I believe that this component of exertion on both sides - creator and consumer, is the facet which allowed the music we loved to survive over long periods of time. This is the era of Hip-Hop that I dearly miss.

Writing down these thoughts, I laugh because I realize that over the last few years, I’ve somehow morphed into “old head” status when it comes to consuming music. This next statement is going to sound very hater-like, which could be possible, though it’s very difficult for me to say that I actually hate something. Transparently though, at this age, I don’t really care what I get labeled as anymore. But I truly cannot stand the vast majority of today’s music, Hip-Hop specifically. So much of it sounds copied and pasted onto the same blank canvas, with little to no effort exerted into these songs and projects. From the titles to the artwork, down to the lyrics and production (or a major lack thereof).

It seems like too few artists genuinely care about the art form that, once upon a time, was so sacred. In my younger days, there were always uncles and older cousins who used to obliterate the likeness of whatever artist I admired, regardless of how good I thought they were or how popular said artist was. I used to deem them as crusty old haters who lacked the slightest clue about whose music was good, and whose wasn’t. It’s funny how some of the artists we’d debate over back then, artists that I wasn’t educated on at the time, have turned into some of my favorite musicians the older I’ve gotten. Time, open-mindedness and education collectively have comical ways of transforming us, if we allow them to.

The gimmicks attached to the music amplifies my distaste for where Hip-Hop currently stands. There’s a primal focus on creating content at a high clip for the sake of gaining large viewership numbers for things that have nothing to do with music, and far less priority on creating high-quality sounding projects these days. More effort is being placed into entertaining social media audiences with mindless internet drama. Fighting over who can garner the most clicks on the internet is the new game, and it’s such a shame.

I believe that major record labels are the root of the cause for this new era we find ourselves in. Most of the blame does not fall on the artists of today. The game has completely shifted away from competitive-driven artists that carried a lofty sense of pride with them during each recording session, yearning to prove their superiority when it comes to writing rhymes and recording songs. Streaming platforms erased the joyous in-person experiences we used to cherish back when purchasing music physically was the norm. High-quality music in Hip-Hop has been difficult to locate, even when considering the handful of rappers who have been releasing incredible projects over the last few years. It feels like such a small amount of artists actually care about their craft and organically put time into developing their penmanship. Even if you make a list of today’s most talented MC’s, there’s simply not enough.

I miss heated barbershop conversations regarding who the best MC’s are. I miss when mixtapes used to leak online and you felt like the coolest kid in the world if you managed to download it onto your phone fast enough before it was taken down. I miss that feeling of hearing an incredible artist for the first time and pridefully putting all of your friends onto them, as though you were part of their marketing team. I miss reading CD jackets from front to back, admiring the artwork and enthusiastically turning the glossy pages with my oily fingers. I miss taking my mom’s 2002 blue Mazda truck out for a spin along Boulevard East in the middle of the evening on weekdays back in high school, when I’d try to impress a pretty girl with my taste in music. I’d pop a mixtape disc into the car stereo that I made with the help of LimeWire, and cruise underneath the night sky with the windows cracked. If she nodded her head up and down, then my style was validated. And that was one of the greatest feelings on earth. I miss being in love with Hip-Hop.