Recently there has been big news: hip-hop has fallen out of the Billboard Top 40 after maintaining its place since 1990. When I first heard about this I was conflicted. I was always content that rap music has gotten to a point to be taken seriously, after a long history of being dismissed, and it being on top does bring me joy. However, recently it has felt like the genre needed a massive reset. That was made especially apparent after the Kendrick Vs. Drake battle.
I know, I know, everybody is over the battle and it has been milked by everyone, especially in the rap community. There is a reason why though: it feels like the door shutting on an era in rap music. After being the most dominant genre for the past two decades, oldheads would say rap’s downfall began during the Bling Era of the 2000s. I would argue that it started as recently as 2018-2020. For a while, trap was the main genre of rap that was popular. It still had substance and was fun, but it was obvious it was getting stale. That’s what the Kendrick vs. Drake battle really meant; the destruction of recycled hip-hop, returning the genre back to its roots. Kendrick Lamar’s unreleased on streaming song, “Watch The Party Die” is about this: the death of the vain, party-centric era of low quality rap, returning to an creative era for hip hop that has been lacking from this decade.
This year is a perfect example of this change. Multiple mainstream artists have released albums or singles this year that have made zero noise. Lil Baby released WHAM this year, to no fanfare at all. Then there was Playboi Carti’s MUSIC which, while exciting after such a long wait, came out to a middling reception. There were also releases by Young Thug and Travis Scott, both heavily scrutinized by the hip-hop community. This isn’t a coincidence. After the battle, the public started to wake up and realize what the state of hip-hop actually is. There was a response to this though: rapper Doechii began to show what the future of hip-hop could be in popular culture. Instead of the constant low effort work from the top rappers in the industry, she goes out of her way to try different styles and be creative, which is shown on her recent album Alligator Bites Never Heal. Whether it be through R&B, experimental, old style, or new style, this album shows what modern rap can be.
Where does all this leave rap and hip-hop in general? Well first that don’t take rap off of your radar for good music, even mainstream rap. There are still rappers out in the mainstream who release quality music. Kendrick Lamar, Doechii, and Tyler, The Creator are good examples of this. Rap is still a genre of music that deserves to be held up to the same standard as every other genre, regardless of where it is in popularity. Recently the way the faces of mainstream rap have presented the genre has been very lackluster and uninspired. For this inspiration to be found, the genre needs to leave the mainstream, so that effort can be put back into rap. That doesn’t mean that rap has to go back to 90s boom bap, but there needs to be more effort put into the music.
Rap is going to follow a similar trajectory to rock: starting off very primitive early on in its lifespan, getting a huge commercial boom in the next two decades, then slowly fizzling out of the mainstream, developing subgenres that are antithesis to what it was earlier on. For rock this was grunge and nu metal, and for rap it is the rage movement that was spearheaded by opium. If you’re a rap fan this might sound like a sad thing, but as a fellow rap fan, I couldn’t be more happy. It’s about time for the genre to get out of the hands of the labels and trends, and focus on what it started as: The grind to become the best, while uplifting your community and the people around you.
