Vibin Rap Culture (revised)

The world of modern rap music is full of a new always changing culture. Every year something new appears in modern culture and the popularity of the style of modern rap changes. A great way to follow modern rap culture is following popular trends on twitter. Whenever you see a new word that people are using, it always seems to find its way into a new song. A different style of changing culture and the sound of the music is the location that the modern rap music comes from. If you pay close attention to the artist and where they are from the style, tone and sound of the music is different.  However, the genre is not different. That is the relation between culture and the type of music. The genre and the topics of the music are all the same. The breakdown and the nitty gritty prove that the music from different locations and artists background have a large effect on the sound. For example, the New York sound of modern druggy rap. A$AP MOB comes from New York, in most of all of their songs they mention the city, how they grew up and the drugs they run. When you go down to Atlanta its all about the Lean, or codine and how the east side of Atlanta inst a place you go unless you are part of their gangs. There is even a new subculture of druggy trap music showing up in Florida. Many new artists are gaining traction in Florida with a type of drug rap that is all based around its location and even though it is rap it sounds nothing like other rap around the country. You can relate the separation of location to almost evolution of canaries in islands in the Caribbean. The genre is the same, rap. However, when you take location, predecessors and type of living the music is individual on its own, creating different sounds and styles of the same type of music.
           

             This week we are looking at Step Brothers a new album recently released by G-Easy and Carnage. This album comes from the west coast, but not your normal Oakland rap or LA Gang Banger sort of rap coming straight from the hood followed by heavy repetitive beats with action-less threats thrown over top. This style of rap music is coming from the more white style or Beverly hills rap culture. This style of G-Easy is drug rap, but he pushes the tones of pop and womanizing that most modern pop artists do. Carnage however is a Guatemalan native that grew up in the less appealing side of Maryland. Carnage is an EDM producer that deals more with modern trap music. Which is trill sounds building until they collide and drop the bottom out of a sub-woofer and you can feel the bass all the ways in your toes. Carnage has done other work with well known drug rap artists like MIGOS, ILOVEMAKONNEN, Lil Uzi Vert, and ASAP Ferg. In my eyes and most other rap lovers this tends to give him credibility in the rap game. This credibility drags G-Easy back form the ledge of pop and more into the drug rap game. The album is heavily influenced the culture of the artists involved. Carnage creates bass heavy songs that you could see a gangster bumping to in his car, while G-Easy's lyrics are not as strong as the beats.

         The Beverly Hills rap culture is a strange one, unlike other rap cultures it focusses more on girls and what material items they have. It is often that it is less about selling drugs and running drive-bys and more "stealing your girl" and "going down the coast in a convertible". The rap coming out of Beverly hills is often very boring running so close to the line of pop. The use of Carnage in this album though helps greatly. First it adds credibility of rap to the album. Then Carnage's music goes hard, no matter what song EDM or rap, and he adds so much more culture to a rather bland west coast rap culture.  

               Rap culture is a something that is heavily based on location. Where the money follows the change in the style of rap follows. when you have upper middle class, white people taking up rap in Beverly Hills, you don’t have them rapping about the hardships, the drugs they must sell to live, their baby mama's, or that friends and family have died from violence. Like almost every other subculture of rap across the US. Instead you get everything that is good for them, fame, money, cars, girls, and their huge homes. It is very rarely their hardships, or the hardships that others are facing within their local area. Their style of rapping is more about bragging, most of it is how they are better than you and this can sometimes be a turn off of the genre. If you ever went to an American high school I relate the feeling to talking to a duschebag jock, he is quick to talk about himself, he thinks he is better than you, and is extremely egotistic. Another location that is very similar to Beverly hills is New York City. Again, this is a place of money and yet the rapper try and act like they have nothing or are coming from nothing, for example Nikki Manaj came from the city. All she raps about I how big her butt is and how much more things she has than you. However, if you just go to the Bronx you can find A$AP Ferg, who truly had a hard life style with a missing father, no income and many brothers and sisters. The culture that comes along with the style of music heavily depends on where the artist is from.

               The songs on the album are very catchy, and are all about the crazy lifestyle that they live. They talk about all the diamonds around their neck, and the girls hanging off them. This style of rapping has created this culture of young rappers aspiring to be the greats having generic music. The constant bragging about money, drugs, and women by larger artist have made it so new up and comers are trying to act like they have money. They often don’t and you can see it clear as day. A great example of this is Famous Dexter a mumble drill trap rapper. He has had several shows over a couple of years, but in his songs he is holding HUGE wads of cash and is sitting on $300,000 cars. However, his net worth is only $1 million. The constant bragging from the greats has created this culture within rap that they HAVE to be richer than the next person and they have to constantly be telling people about all their money. A great example of a rapper who got away from this trend was Kendrick Lamar. With the release of his new album he raps about traits that he wants people to have, he wants people to be humble again and to be kind to on another.

               The album Step Brothers is a great album; however, it is like the others in its genre. The album is fun and the music was good to bob a head to. However, it did not want to be a risky album and get away from the culture and genre norms. I heard in an interview that the two of them recorded and released all the whole album in a night, so they did not have a lot of time to create lyrics or beats that separate them from everyone else. The album did not so much to the culture surrounding Beverley Hills rap. They continued the same ideas that the only reason to be a rapper is to do drugs and find gold diggers. As much as I Carnage and G-Easy I believe they could’ve done so much more in this album that could’ve had better effects on the listeners and the culture surrounding the music.

A Genre History of Druggy Rap Music

            The world of druggy rap music has changed wildly over the past 30 years. Covering every type of drug, you could think of and every emotion that drug causes. In the late 80s and early 90s when rap music and hip hop were starting to blend drugs were a sensitive topic. This was in the time where there was zero to no explicit content in music, and explicit content then would be considered childish or silly in modern standards. Drugs that were mentioned in this time were considered bad and was almost a PSA not to go to drugs and love your family. Then the late 90s and the early 2000s came around. This was during the rise of profanity in rap music. The Atlanta style rap music came out and started clashing with the west coast drug rap which was largely gang related. It was all about being more gangster than the next person, how many girls you have, how many guns you own, the crew you represent, and how much drugs you can sell. Looking back at this time, it was when crack cocaine was very prevalent in the low-income communities and so when rappers talked about drugs it was always about selling drugs.  It was very rare to listen to a rap song and hear them talk about how much drug they are doing. It was about their upbringing and how they must sell drugs to make an income. Then came around 2009 to present day. Where drugs are almost mentioned in every song. So much drugs are talked about that I can even make my brand about druggy rap music. Modern drug rap has consumed much of the rap genre; however you can still find artists like the Social Club Misfits, that are vulgar and don’t sing about drugs, yet their music can keep up with today’s rap. Many modern drug rappers have made their career around drugs. Rick Ross for example, used to be one of the largest cocaine king pins in all of New York was on most wanted lists for the amount of drugs his organization pushed. He is now an award-winning rapper who constantly raps about his drug money and the girls and cars he gets with it. Many new and upcoming rappers started out as drug dealers according to their songs, for an example Meek Mill. A small rapper who was in a gang was able to get a record deal and make it to the big leagues. After his record deal, he moved from selling drugs to using them. Most of his songs now talk about how he can afford more drugs than people and is “harder” than them.

            Meek Mill’s debut album Dreams and Nightmares in 2012 was his hardest and his most down to earth drug rap album. This album was released through the rap collective MMG or Maybach Music Group, which was founded by Rick Ross and feature other artists like Wale, Gunplay, and Omarion. The collective and their music tend to be more hardcore and ghetto rap with ear damaging bass.  However, with Meek’s album Dreams and Nightmares, it was complex, not all the songs sounded the same and took his drug use and created a master piece with it. Many of the songs on this album are still played today, blasting at parties and people turning up. During its peak the album was all over the billboard top 100, even having the song “Young & Gettin’ It” sit at number 2 for several weeks. Along with this album hard bass and yelling tone, many of the songs feature artists that are well known in the R&B world like John Legend, Mary J. Blige and Trey Songs. That is part of the album that makes it stand out. When modern age drug was gaining traction many of the songs sounded the same, with a free sample beat and autotune. If you are looking for music that follows under that label, lots of Lil Wayne’s music after 2002 was all autotuned and very little talent. Dreams and Nightmares pulls away from the normal and shows that drugs can be implemented into the songs without bragging that you sell drug and smoke Oz’s of weed daily.

            The release of this album was essential to genre. This album advanced the genre to the next level where drugs songs made it to the main stream population. The mid 2000s the general population was still being desensitized to the prevalence of hard drugs used in music on the radio. Meek raps about the amount of weed and alcohol he is consuming bringing into the light that one can be successful and have their mind altered with substances.

            This album is always going to be one of the best albums in the genre. The mix between real rapping, creative enough that the music can make it to the top of the billboard 100 while still relate and have cribs bumping. Not long after the release of this album drug music took a turn to Future and Migos, where they mumble most of what they say, and people that don’t listen to it normally can’t relate to the music and are more likely to turn it off or change it. If you have not listened to music like Meek Mill’s I highly recommend it. His creative style mixed with head bobbing beats and relatable lyrics makes any listen, take a step back, and try and find out who it was. If you are a fan of Meek Mill or Dream and Nightmares, I would recommend also listening to Rick Ross’ later albums. You could also listen to older Big Sean, his music is extremely similar to Meek Mill, they both came up from the bottom dealing with drugs and now sing about their drug usage and their successes. If I were to give Dreams and Nightmare a grade based on the music I would give it a 7, but a grade given to the importance of the genre I would give it a 8.