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Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Opinion / Mike McCray / News Mr. Me Too is killing the music
Posted By Mike McCray on Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 11:29 AM
It's no secret that the glory days of hearing more than just a catchy hook and cookie-cutter, flavor-of-the-month beat on the radio have passed.
But what's really ruining hip-hop isn't the South or one teenage rapper who is named far too much, it's the attitude of many of the genre's future one hit wonders.
See they didn't start rapping because they had something to say or any particular passion for the music. They started rapping because they saw someone else who was getting cars, clothes and money by manipulating the game and said to themselves, "Fuck that, if he can do it, I can do it!"
And thus launches the seemingly endless cycle of new rappers who weren't scribbling lyrics down and daydreaming of hip-hop glory in high school or even freestyling where ever they could find a challenge. These guys were like you and me — they listened to the radio and instead of bashing their heads against the windshield when they heard, "Becky" for the fourth time in two hours, they decided they'd do that too.
Some would applaud them for being proactive. Sure, what they're doing is a hustle, but it lacks the passion to be anything more than a minor dance sensation, a blip on the charts and a bunch of unused promotional material collecting dust in some radio station's prize closet.
Chances are the money didn't last, the "artist" rejoins the rest of us living regular lives but with narcissistic delusions of grandeur from their one song that made it. Their song and subsequent dance are instantly associated with something you did when you were young and dumb.
Maybe justice is the lack of longevity in their careers, I mean seriously, do people even remember who sang "Do The Heisman?" But then again who am I to talk? I, along with nearly 400 other people from my school's College of Arts and Sciences did "Swag Surf" at graduation.
I will put money on this, most artists who decide to "Party Like A Rockstar," "Crank Dat Roy" or "Booty Dew" aren't around for album two because at the end of the day, they weren't real artists, they were just Mr. Me Too's.
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