Rappers used to be delightful - Kanye vs. Curtis

From the beginning, hip-hop wasn’t a noun, it was a verb. The basic elements of hip-hop culture are DJ’ing, MC’ing, graffiti art, and breakdancing – and it was something you lived, not something you bought in a store. The people who did it and did it right (spoke perfect slang, wore the right clothes, and were always in “the place to be”) were known as “B-Boys” and B-Girls”. That was me: Pumas w/fat laces, Lee jeans, and puffy down jacket, chillin’ with the HBO (Home Boys Only) Crew at the Chez Vous Rollerway in Boston calling everything and everyone “fresh”.

As a culture, hip-hop has its roots in poverty. When you can’t get a venue, the party jumps off in the park. When you don’t have a generator, you patch into the streetlights for electricity. When you can’t afford a band and a singer, you get a DJ and an MC – the DJ will take the best part of a song and, using two copies of the record, literally spin them backwards on two turntables so that part is repeated over and over and over again (using a mixer to switch from one to the other, rhythmically scratching over the transitions so they never missed a beat) as the MC kept the party live by chatting back-and-forth with the crowd or telling a true-life story about what goes on in the neighborhood from his experience. Either that or there might be a few MC’s on the mic, battling each other to see who the crowd likes more. That’s what MC’s did: they kept the party live or they bested an opponent with mic skills. That’s how rap music was born and it’s been a part of my life since “Rapper’s Delight” (a party record) by Sugar Hill Gang and “The Message” (a true-life story record) by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.

I will always listen to rap music and I will always love it. But unless they’re on the mic MC’ing, I truly do not care what any rapper has to say - because the skill-set required to be a rapper (the ability to rhyme and count to eight) is learned in grade school and the rapper’s worldview can be summed up in one phrase, “I’m the best.” Essentially, your average rapper is a 4th grader with an oversized ego and an enormous chip on his shoulder. And your average rapper couldn’t MC if his life depended on it. But after RUN-DMC looped the best eight bars of Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” and took their version to #1, the record industry realized that rap music sells. And after Compton’s own NWA showed that the “gangster rapper” sells more than any other kind, rappers have basically forsaken MC skills and have been trying to out-gangster and out-sell each other ever since.

Which brings us to this weekend’s announcement by Mr. Curtis James Jackson, III. That’s his government name. You probably know him as 50 Cent. He’s a rapper (not an MC) who nobody had ever heard of until 2000 when he put out a tune called “How to Rob” on an underground mixtape. Since his debut album dropped in 2003, he’s released two more and sold over 20 million records. Over the weekend, he bet his recording career that his next album would outsell Kanye West’s next album, which is dropping on the same day. “Put it this way, if Kanye West sells more records than 50 Cent,” he said, “I won’t put out any more solo albums.” He also said, “The people who give out trophies, pick him because he's safe.” He added that he, “sold 1.1. million records in four days and, I didn't get one trophy for The Massacre, for the entire album. Then release Get Rich Or Die Trying as a soundtrack, sell 3 million records of the soundtrack and soundtracks are harder to sell than solo albums...and then, no trophies for the soundtracks.” Can a gangster get a tissue?

Just cut to the chase. Because of his investment in Vitamin Water about three years ago, he made $400 million when Coca-Cola bought its parent company Glaceau, so he doesn’t really need to work. If he’s more concerned with how his album sells relative to Kanye West’s than he is about using the mic to keep a party live, tell a true-life story from his experience, or demonstrate some kind of skills, then he’s not really an MC anyway and can just go ahead and retire right now. One more reason why I don’t listen to rappers talk: the albums are scheduled to be released on September 11th.