Why we need to rethink the rules for Hip-Hop & creativity.
Ill Doctrine is a video blog on music, politics and culture, launched in 2007 by Jay Smooth. We will be premiering an episode a week on ANIMAL. Older episodes can be found at IllDoctrine.com and you can follow Jay on Twitter here.
Really … I want to respect all of this hype about MC's being able to creatively draw from other people's genius. I want to be able to accept that in a less than idealistic world that Rakim didn't write "Lyrics of Fury" or that G. Rap didn't write "Men At Work" or that unnoticeable dude that just walked by me on the street wrote "The Message" and allowed Melle Mel to walk away with the credit of crafting the most important hip-hop song of all-time. But, I can't.
Roberta Flack is my favorite singer of all-time. Her voice can move me and grab me in a way that no other voice in the history of music can. This is why when we learn that she covered certain songs, or sang other people's poetry, or – generally – sang songs that were not her creation … we accept it because the person who wrote that song, in no way, could sing it like she could.
This is why I don't buy these comparisons of hip-hop to other genres. No one could blow a trumpet like Miles Davis. Some came close, but, he's the master of his trade. In hip-hop music, the ability to write is primary, the ability to perform the rhyme comes second. I could perform the entire Illmatic album better than Nas – as he's not a great performer and the rhymes are second nature in me after nearly 20 years. But, I couldn't have written it.
Many years ago we got on Jay-Z for "Dummbing down his lyrics to double his dollars" (at least some of us did). But, as an MC, taking credit for someone else's rhyme is a death nail for hip-hop music … worse than dumbing down your lyrical genius.
Furthermore, it's this type of hype that is the hammer for the death nail. Saying that somehow, because Duke Ellington who was a master pianist and didn't compose some of the works that he brought light to, that it is okay for an MC – who is a writer before he/she is a performer & doesn't play instruments or sing – to be authored.
Nah, son. Save that shit for Kris Kross.
Respect, but there is a particular timing and method behind HOW emcees recite their rhymes that makes it uniquely theirs. When Pharoahe Monch wrote for Diddy, it was very obvious where his input was because of his unique timing/flow. For me, unique timing is the main parallel between emcees and Jazz musicians. Rakim regularly patterned his flow after Coltrane solos! Dilla attributes Thelonius Monk for his unique groove in his productions.
As Guru said, its mostly the voice, and being a great writer does NOT make you a great emcee (see Canibus, Chino XL, et al [no dis]). An emcee's flow/delivery is, IMO, MORE important than the content of their songs (ask Fat Joe). Its my only logically reasoning for the popularity of Snap Music, Swag Rap, etc.
I disagree that the ability to perform songs is secondary in Hip-Hop, I believe it is more important to be able to move the crowd than to say something thought provoking, I rather have it be your way though. The most heralded emcees ever in Hip-Hop are there because the songs touch the listener the same way Roberta Flack does for you. If the emcee didnt have a dope voice or a strong flow they would never be as large. Also I highly doubt you could record a karaoke version of Illmatic that would sound better than Nas' (I can't believe you said that lol). Biggie's delivery and immaculate flow carried him before he developed his cinematic story telling he often used on LAD (he always had the ability but used it way more often later).
Flack's "Gone Away" gives me chills btw, I wish she did more music with Curtis Mayfield.
The Nigger Album was dope to me, so the ghostwriting didn't really matter to me. Also, I would assume that Stic & J Elec got writing credit for their contributions and they didn't write the whole song FOR Nas. The latter sounds very suspect
If MC's are not writing their own rhymes … they're actors.
As a culture, we would have never accepted such laziness. Now we are behind it?
I'm through. Hip-Hop is dead.
NaS is a horrible performer. Horrible. A much better writer than a performer.
It was NaS himself who titled one of his albums "Hip Hop Is Dead"
Maybe he gets a ghost-writing PBA card for that, I don't know.
Or maybe he's fulfilling (phoning in) his agreement with the record company.
It strikes me odd how the post-millennial grown folk hip-hop heads try as they may to curate the culture. I was outside of an Artifacts show last year in New Brunswick and a dude was on that drunken grumpy old man nowadays hip hop is this and hip hop is that vibe.
Fact is that it's changed and there are gaps in the years between the 4 generations. NaS is one of the last of the golden era to remain in the game with some relevance. Even when he dropped Sly Fox (a couple of years too late,) it's still had a resounding effect on a new generation "blind to the way oh yeah that they talkin that garbage."
I have no problem with him getting help writing new raps. Respect I think he needed help with the beat selection. On anything he put out after God's Son, there's just about 3 or 4 bangers on the average and the rest is all that synthesized stuff. I'm starting to sound like the grumpy old guy outside The Old Bay now.
Thanks for the get back, homeboy. I appreciate that.
Yo … I have definitely been that post-millennial "been listening to hip-hop for 30 years" type of dude – barkin' at the younger generation about the greatest lyricists that they will never take the time to honor. But, on the real, as a lifelong fan, I used to wait – feverishly & fiendishly – for the next MC that would spit that most incredible verse that flipped my wig. That's where my disdain comes from.
"If that's not your brilliance, you need to point me in the direction of the cat that wrote it!" That's how I feel. If it ain't yours, don't claim it. Give props where props are due. Word up.
I realize that I'm horrible late in writing this response but I figure it's better late than never.
Anyway, I've been listening to hiphop since the mid-nineties, and I have to say I still find every new movement and style interesting and good, sometimes only because they are new takes on an artform that in many ways is entering a stage in it's life where it could rest on it's laurels. there is no doubt in my mind that hiphop has now been a respectable artform for so long that it has institutions and legends, just like rock before it and jazz and classical music, but it's a testament to the art of hiphop that still after 40 years I perceive no hint of it stopping to reinvent itself through young performers using it to tell their stories.
This is a fact that I love about hiphop.
Having said that and more to your point: maybe that's the problem? Maybe the issue isn't or shouldn't be whether or not you utilize ghost writers every now and then so long as you have actually created something yourself, but maybe issue is giving credit where credit is due. I for example am one of those people who have over the years respected the MC's who have done everything for themselves the most, but maybe as illdoc said in the video: after more than 20 years wriitng his own stuff maybe NaS has earned the right to collaborate with other people to make music that still moves us, but maybe as you point out credit where credit is due. Or again as illdoc said, maybe it would just be good if it didn't feel like NaS had to hide the fact that he'd been getting help.
True, there are way more important things in the world. My opinion though is Give credit where it's due. Did the liner notes say? Also, the ability to write or recite off the top is a huge underlying principle in hip hop. Unlike singing and playing instruments, the voice doesn't matter so much so it's not like the reciter adds to the art. So, why do it? I don't buy that the reciter can perform it better. Generally, the writer is thinking in their own head in their own voice, the cadence and flow. So, it's not like they are writing lyrics for the reciter to execute the song in a way that the writer can't or for a different interpretation that the writer normally could do. Generally, from my limited knowledge of who's been using ghostwriters, those who use them can't write as well and are already personalities. Ie. puffy is a producer/exec/flashy dude who makes money off image and putting others music out. His voice and delivery is pretty annoying to me. Dre already gets credit for production, but we all know his delivery is competent and he isn't known for lyrics. But it isn't like he can do it better or give it a different spin than the writer. I can understand why they can get away with ghostwriters- bc they are already respected for some other aspect. I still think it's wack especially bc it isn't forthcoming in the credits. But it's not going to wipe out my praises and reservations about Nas.
And for most rappers, it's generally their choice of production, catchy hook, attitude and image that sells. The actual lyrics/flow may or may not have anything to do with those successes. But I guess it's a different point.
Jay, lots of really interesting things here. It reminds a bit of the whole debacle that crops up every few years about memoirs that aren't so true…or were written by someone else. I think the outrage around this stuff has to do with the fact that we got looking to art to find authenticity in our world/in our lives. When we find something that speaks to us, in a strange way, that makes us feel more authentic. So when that authenticity gets damaged or called into question in some way, *we* feel damaged. In the examples you brought up I think collaboration was known about from the get-go & those artists took something that was collective and made it individual (which made it collective again…you know?). I don't think the problem is that collaboration happens…I think the problem comes in when people feel "tricked." But as you start out this video saying, maybe they were naive if they feel tricked by this.
Hey, so, I'm new to your blog, but it's like crack. Started with the sexist gamer dudes and just been rolling on through, no plans on stopping.
But I got something to say here–I'm a white chick hip hop lover from way on back. I've gotten some crazy looks going up front for Crazy Bone, you know? But I don't care–I love hip hop music then, now, in the future.
I'm also a writer. More specifically: a Rhetoritician. And Ghost Writing is something big in the non-fiction world of writing. Happens all the time. Actually, most biographies you will read have not been written by the person they are about–but by a ghost writer. We view this as craft. We view this, in a sense, as turning an oral history into prose.
For Nas, I think, I don't see this as any less him, so much as him allowing some others to take his oral history, or an oral history that he feels embodies himself, into a rhyme.
I get the street-cred of "my story, my words" but style is effervescent. Sort of belongs to a community that makes it. So, I give him cred for hooking into the community feeling of hip hop, and allowing others to take his feelings and stories and suffuse them. I don't see nothing wrong here. Thanks for this!