Read the above (hype)post here
A few days ago as I was going through my blog feeds and came across a 2dopeboyz (who are sometimes synonymous with dickriding) re-post by Andreas Hale about Kendrick Lamar. The opinion based piece titled Kendrick Lamar Is The Best Emcee of The Digital Era was his attempt to solidify the artist as the best out since 2008. The cynic in me was curious since I was familiar with a bit of his writing from his Hip-Hop DX days and even for a time followed him on twitter for a bit as well. Now as a founder/lead editor of the The Well Versed website I was curious to what he had to say of the Compton upstart.
He first goes on to describe 2008 as the year Hip-Hop entered the “Digital Age”. Why 2008? I don’t know, from what I remember Okayplayer which started in 2004 was trailblazing on this online hip-hop communities. If it wasn’t for sites such as Rappers I Know and the later mentioned I don’t think we would be talking about artist such as Phonte and 9th Wonder of Little Brother, Jay Electronica, Tanya Morgan, Black Milk, etc. That same year a new social network started rising in popularity called Myspace. This network created a way for artist to upload, share(spam), new fans with their music online without spending hundreds of dollars on a web designer, or subscribing to some pyramid scheme like scam disguised as a monthly hosting service/online record label. Some artist were able to even capitalize off from this site and gain notoriety and record deals (see: Asher Roth). As this site gained popularity and started reaching it’s platform peak around 2006 music blogs started poppin up everywhere as well. What once was just a source for news logs, became a voice for aspiring music journalist(and kids with too much time in high school) to write about and share the music they liked through across cyberspace. But according to Hale and his Digital Age origins, this wasn't even happening yet. We still got two years before the official age debuts, and Lil Wayne(whose Internet buzz started circulating two years before 2008 as well), Charles Hamilton, and Lil B the Base God all single handily almost combined to unleash more music songs/mixtapes/albums (although not too much quality) than anyone could of ever imagined.
Moving on he begins to talk about the over-saturation of rap music since this time(which I totally agree with if you didn’t catch from the end of the last paragraph) and list a few artist during this period who’ve been able to gain some notoriety and success. Drake is on this list of course, Curren$ey , etc. It was at this point I noticed to why he of designated the selected 08. It must be because he didn’t want to mention the one who help open the lane for people to start noticing the young black artist in LA county area again ... Blu. Who in 2006 thanks to bloggers(who didn’t have the impact they do now) had Questlove and critics alike singing praises about his LP with Producer Exile Below the Heavens. But I am not here to say who is better really, I am just wondering how you can write a piece stating someone is the best artist of this generation, and not mention someone who has met some similar successes from the same region? Nor is there mention of current blogger LA based favorite Tyler, The Creator,who love him or hate him, the kid has made some great music, and got a lot of fans and buzz now as well. Curious about this.
This is an opinion piece, so I will cut him some slack of not staying up on the emerging west coast scene. But then I come to the 2pac/Ice Cube comparisons (aka lazy music journalism) . I have stated before that I hate when people start explaining/defining artist by other artist. Such as when B.o.B was the next Andree 3000( don’t think as many are saying this now days). Let’s get one thing straight, Kendrick Lamar sounds exactly like Kendrick Lamar. Do I hear a little bit of Pac/Cube influence in that? A little(very little at that), But I detect a lot Hendrix in some of The Beatles later music, and no one says that they sounded like him today. The only reason we are talking about Kendrick as a standout is cause he has is own voice! Not similarities of someone else. He has his own set of goals, and influences that might stray from this path of those mentioned, and to be fair, you cannot predict ones future. He could quit rap tomorrow for all we know and be more like Bill Withers in the end. In other words as Doc Brown said to Marty Mcfly in Back To the Future Part III
“It means your future hasn't been written yet. No one's has. Your future is whatever you make it”.
The last thing that really was standout was the whole he did it with nothing but his team. If you are an artist who is in popular conversation right now. You did not do it without a co-sign/industry connect/someone dishing out some dough/ or a selling your soul to the devil like Jay-Z did(last ones a joke, though [King] MC Hammer wouldn’t find it so amusing.). Tyler had some former label guys with some major connects hook him up, Drake was rolling with Lil Wayne’s agents when Best I Ever Had single blew up, and so on and so on. Point is everyone has help. Nothing is wrong with that. If others are helping you while on the grind and they have some ways of getting you noticed, more props to you. But these PR fluff pieces that have these artist appearing out of no where from thin air to all this exposure is just bull shit basically. I remember the exact moment last year in November when this Lamar hype(outside of the 2dopeboyz ) originally took off to become what it is today. When during a LA radio interview Dr Dre( co-signed him(which a few years before he had co-signed another Cali artist by the name of Fashawn as well which people seem to forget). All of a sudden, a bunch of dudes had his name in their mouths from across the nation, Dudes that weren’t even up on game where talking bout wanting to book him for shows and such which is good for him.
Which I am sure it wasn’t by chance the Andre (old) Young got in contact with him. I am sure someone in his camp got in contact with Lamars camp, or heard a song and started pitching to Dre should peep him.,Oh yes! I remember it was most likely long time associate Kurupt who he Lamar was rappin with under the name of K.Dot a few years earlier. All makes sense.
It really is dis-hearting sometimes when i read pieces like this that do more harm than good to the artist. Yes it was a “bold” headline, which drew or is drawing lots of views to his site(which seems to have random ad links embedded on almost every other word and a more ...my god[in Pusha T voice]!). But what good does that do to Kendrick Lamar? His fans become more passionate online maybe and begin posting he is “the best” on some rap blogs comment section, which will make more haters, and others will flock to check out his music with these (unrealistic) high expectations only to realize... it’s not the best release this year(That in my opinion goes to another Compton emcee/producer who goes by DJ Quik. ), or to just click next on all future post about him altogether. Which if Mr Hale were to just simply state that he liked this new Section 80 album(which is actually pretty fresh/but I can name more than a few albums that I would point you to first), and write why, it would be more fitting. Being that after investigating more before writing I saw he had no music reviews on his site this year. Which means that his declaration means absolutely nothing. It’s easy to be declare the best when you’ve(so it seems) listened zero else. Which of course isn’t true, but to write something like this one would have some credibility this year with other artist release at least so we can see where your coming from more in your work.
I am glad you enjoyed the album as much as you did and I hope others do as well. It was a good listen for me as well. Let’s just tone down the sensationalism a bit next time.
Andreas Hale,
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