By shelz.

Any dimestore psychiatrist worth his weight in Prozac will tell you obsessing over your past will hamper your future. How can you move forward if you are always looking back?  You can’t.

As a Hip-Hop old head, I’ve had to wrestle with this concept when considering the path rap has taken.  Sometimes when I’m listening to the latest and greatest thing rap has to offer, I find myself uttering the same words my mom did the first time she heard Run DMC.

“What is that noise? That’s not music.  You young folks don’t know good music.”

Pretty bad, right? Now, all I need is a cane and a blue wig.

The bottom line is if you spend your days comparing Illmatic to souljaboytellem.com you are stacking the chips in your frowney face favor old curmudgeonly one.  Believe it or not, there were wack rappers back in the 90’s just like there are dope ones coming up now.

So stop frowning and open your ears.  Planet Ill is presenting the top ten reasons why Hip-Hop in 2011 is just as good as Hip-Hop in 1991, if not better.  Okay..it’s a stretch, but we’ll say almost as good and keep it moving. So sit back enjoy some of the cool new things we have in Hip-Hop that no one would have ever thought of back then.  Enjoy.

Sheer Volume

I live in a house with 3 other people.  Two are rappers.  No lie.  There are so many styles, so many artists, so much material to sort through; I havent slept since 2008.  If you can’t find something you like in the overwhelming mass of humanity who have all tagged themselves next to blow, you are going out of your way to not like anything.  There are 6 billion people on earth.  5 billion are rappers.  Pick one.

[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2saI2pzF7PU[/pro-player]

Anesthetizing of the N-Word

There was no more serious of a fighting word than nigger. Back in the day, an un-black person couldn’t even get that entire word out of their mouth without some immediate consequence.  Unless, of course, he was standing with 100 of his best hooded friends holding a shot gun in one hand and a noose in the other. Then, well, he could get away with it.  But gone are those days.  Now rappers totally embrace the practice of white people calling black people nigglets.  Ask Ghostface and Mr Fab.  It’s so new millennium kumbaya.

[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3c3P9bi8HyE&feature=rellist&playnext=1&list=PL24180B1531597E88[/pro-player]

The Great Genre Migration

Country Rap, Trip Hop, Rapelectronica … The list goes on and on.  This is no longer viewed as the creation of the hood.  Rap is now an American artform subject to all the revisionist lore that comes with that title.  That may seem a bit disheartening to traditionalists, but you can’t tell me you’ve never wanted to hear Yo-Yo Ma spit a couple bars.  In today’s climate, that might be totally possible.

[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqNdqwQIH98[/pro-player]

Dreads

E40 said shake them dreads.  Then everyone went out and grew them so they could do so. No one man should have all that power.  Word to the Bay.

E-40 – Tell Me When To Go by Fifty-Dirhams

All Digital Everything

The concept of “physical” anything is becoming a thing of the past.  Just in case you didn’t know, the federal government is going to stop giving you a “physical” piece of paper when you buy a savings bond.  It will exist only in computer files and you will have to hope they keep good records of your purchases.  Bwahahaha.. good luck with that one.  It’s like that in music as well.  Nothing, I mean nothing, beats the tonal quality of a 45, but who has time to go out and buy one.  You have message board posting to do.  And what would you play it on?  The stereo system has been reduced to something you can leave in your pocket just in time for laundry day. However, in a world where convenience is king and even the physical exertion of walking from one end of Walmart to the other  is more than some can tolerate,  the mp3 is the best thing since ummm.. ustream. Which will probably be the venue of choice for concerts of the future.  I know.  You can’t wait.

[pro-player width=’450′ height=’323′ type=’video’]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijPE7fe4XTg[/pro-player]

Part 1

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