5. The Milli Beat – Since Lil Wayne’s ,”A Milli,” leaked there have been about a milli rappers freestyling to it. Not only rappers, but even R&B singers have been inspired to spit a freestyle(Ne-Yo,Chris Brown,R.City). With  Lil Wayne doing a remix, it is time to retire the beat.

Check below for the remaining 4 things that need to be retired from Hip Hop. If you feel I’m missing something or disagree, leave a comment.

Photo by Nigel D.

4. Auto-Tune Effect – T-Pain obviously didn’t create the auto-tune effect but he made it extremely popular with hit after hit. He became highly sought after for hooks for every rapper out. But some weren’t willing to pay 85k and others decided to use the effect themselves. T-Pain may be mad about people swagger jacking but he cant complain since he didn’t invent the effect. The list of rappers now using the technique continues to grow from Snoop Dogg, Kanye West, 50 Cent, Lil Kim, LL Cool J, random youtuber, Yung Berg, and  Lil Wayne. It has become to common and often annoying, with some people forcing it. It is time to give this effect a loooong break.

 

3. Shouting Out Name Brands – Rappers are known for showing off and bragging about what expensive items they have in their closet. Soulja Boy got started talking about, “Bathing Apes,” & now has moved on to a, “Gucci bandanna.” Blood Raw prefers a, “Louie Bag,”  The Pack rocks, “Vans,” & Beyonce named a whole heap of brands to Upgrade You. I’m not hating on people being able to buy the finer things in life, it just makes little sense to promote brands that won’t even claim you. The Pack had problems with making a video for, “Vans,” due to the brand not cosigning them. After years of boasting about popping bottles of Cristal, Jay-Z ended up boycotting them after they made racist remarks. So if your promoting a brand in a song make  sure its yours or your at least being compensated for it. The worse thing to do is promote a brand that doesn’t even want you owning their merchandise.

2. The Term, “Real Hip Hop” – It seems, “Real Hip Hop,” is in the eyes of the beholder. If a person doesn’t like a particular style of rap they may feel the need to say it is not, “Real Hip Hop.” Real is defined as, “reflecting the essential or genuine character of something.” When it comes to Hip Hop it comes down to rapping over a beat, that simple. Doesn’t matter if the lyrics or beat are horrible it is still Hip Hop. Instead of saying it is not, “Real Hip Hop,” it would be appropriate to say it is not ,”Quality Hip Hop.”

1. CDs – In the new digital age every album is available for download at least a week before the physical CD drops. Most people don’t even use CD players anymore, to the point people would look down on you for having one on the train lol. MP3 players are superior to CDs in terms of capacity and portability, there is no competition. As a result CD sales are on a sharp drop, Warner Music Group has created plans to improve sales but I doubt they will work. Unless a CD has bonus footage on it you are basically just paying for the cd booklet. When I do purchase a CD I just rip it to my computer and on to my mp3 player. It is time to give up on CDs and keep everything digital(unless you got DVD footage along with it).

Notable Mentions:
Remixes with the same people over and over.
Rappers throwing jabs in hopes of popularity.
Radio stations playing favorites and trying to force people to like songs.
Hip Hop fans too concerned with sales instead of quality.

Article by Nigel D.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 25th, 2008 at 9:25 am and is filed under Top 5. You can skip to the end and leave a response.