Is Mumble Rap Killing Hip Hop?

     
   Some time ago I interviewed Dej Loaf, a platinum-selling Hip Hop artist from Detroit MI, after a concert in Toronto Canada. We discussed her career and what her thoughts were on being compared to the 90’s rapper Boss; another platinum-selling artist from Detroit known for her popular song “Deeper.” Dej Loaf’s response was, “Who is Boss?” I knew at this moment that something a lot deeper than unintelligible lyrics, vocalator effects and Lil Uzi Vert shoulder rolls was happening in Rap's transformation.

 

   Hip Hop culture consists of five elements: MCing, DJing, B-Boy/B-Girl, Graffiti and Knowledge. From its 1970s inception these elements were considered dissonant, vandalism, criminal and counter culture by the mainstream society. As the DJ and MC took center stage and park jams spread around NYC, record labels began to see the marketability of a new music genre called “Rap.” While some record labels were genuinely interested in giving artists a platform, many simply saw dollar signs. This symbiotic and often parasitic relationship between artist and record label began in 1979 when Curtis Blow recorded the first solo album on the Mercury label.

    In the late 1980s and mid-1990s, Hip Hop’s Golden Era, we witnessed some of the most diverse, creative and socially conscious rap music this genre has ever produced. From the mid-1990s onward we’ve also witnessed its mainstream decline; where rap music lacking diversity, creativity and social commentary reached its zenith. Today many of these rap artists. and their inaudible mutters. have come to be known as Mumble Rap.

Telefone by Nonome

     Coming from an era where lyricism was important to listening to incoherent artists is challenging. Yet I refuse to proclaim that Hip Hop is dead. Not because of a stubborn nostalgia to linger in its past, I simply have confidence in our millennial artists to expanding its cultural legacy. Sure there’s a control mechanism in ‘corporate rap’ that has co-opted many mainstream artists, yet there has always been an underground; a subterranean world of sight and sound that infuses Hip Hop with color, consciousness and the creative content we seek. Artists like Noname, Bishop Nehru, Earl Sweatshirt and others are leading the way. In this millennial age where the internet created a direct-to-consumer business model, artists are more accessible and now have a platform to build their brand and distribute their products/services without a mainstream label. Given these factors, Hip Hop is independently alive more than ever before. 

Peace,
Saladin