The Death of Rap: In what way and how did rap change and why do people say it died

Rap has succumbed to globalisation and wealth at the age of 44. Growing up in a rough household in a period of oppression, he always seemed to look to the future and was always focussed on his friends and family. Although not loved by everyone in his early life, he seemed to open up more and more to others as he grew older. The funeral was pleasant and attended by everyone. Everyone? veryone. Rap music seems to be everywhere and for everyone nowadays. This rases the question: has rap really died then? According to some fans, it has. 

ABC News

Verse 1; Interlude: 

Rap music used to be about growing up in the hood, having a rough life and taking care of your family. The children of the black community were often raised in the streets in a time of oppression towards the black community. Even though racial-segregation was gone, there was still a clear distinction between whites and blacks. 

"Three K's two A's in Amerikkka" - Joey Bada$$

Rap was born in the Bronx, New York, in the 70’s and quickly grabbed hold of the black community. Incomes were low, the community was suffering and this created groups. You belonged to a family on the streets, people were involved in gangs. Back in the day the streets in black area’s were ruled by these gangs. They would sell drugs or do other activities in order to get some form of income to get a better life. The money attracted youngsters but where there is opportunity, there are multiple people who want to pursue this. The money created rivalry for control of the streets which resulted in gang wars. Kids lost their lives in the streets and saw friends of them losing their lives in driveby shootings. 

“This is what the Bronx looked like in the early 1970s: a battleground filled with gangs of all shapes and sizes in a vaguely moderated state of anarchy, turf wars fuelled by the economic failure of shoddy urban planning in a city verging on bankruptcy.” (Surico, J. (2015, June 18). How the Gangs of 1970s New York Came Together to End Their Wars)

These themes seem to be lost in currently produced rap music. It’s no longer about the drive-by shootings, the tough life on the streets and taking care of your family. Now-a-days rap is all about big booties, lots of woman, doing drugs, making millions and flying to Paris to buy some clothing. Story and meaning seems to be lost. We can see a transition from the struggle on the streets to the success of the rap “game”. In this paper I will make clear that rap has not died, only changed, and what caused it to change.

Rap music has died: Verse 2; The Old-School:

“It should be noted that early Hip Hop stood against the violence and drug culture that pervaded the time. My dear friend & first client Kurtis Blow once said “On one side of the street, big buildings would be burning down…while kids on the other side would be putting up graffiti messages like, 'Up with Hope. Down with Dope,' 'I Will Survive' and 'Lord, Show Me the Way!’”. The messages of resilience unified a community of people and were the backdrop of hip hop’s beginnings.” (44th Anniversary of the Birth of Hip Hop2017, August 11)) .

Rap music opened a way for the African American community to enter the public sphere. They were able to get their messages out and to inform outsiders of their community about situations they might have never seen, heard about or been in contact with before. Rap therefore is commonly designated as the "CNN for black people” (Blanchard, 1B. (1999, July 26). The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture.). This term comes from the correlation between rappers and “griots”. Griots were “respected African oral historians and praise-singers” and they “… were the keepers and purveyors of knowledge, including tribal history, family lineage, and news of births, deaths, and wars.”.  Rappers used emotion rather than formal outputs to tell people about their daily struggles. This comes from the long history to African culture (Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26)).

  “I see no changes, I wake up in the morning and I ask myself “is life worth living or should I blast myself”. I’m tired of being poor and even worse I’m black. My stomach hurts, so I'm lookin’ for a purse to snatch”  Tupac shaker, Changes. 

Stories about the promised change within the black-white relations that were not held were being told. Stories about how bad it was that large parts of the African-American society wakes up every morning in poor conditions in which they ask themselves if life is even worth living were very common. They are poor AND they are black. These were subjects often spoken about in rap songs. Rap was used to fight back against political injustice, police violence and racism, it was a platform for justice. They were real.

These raps had a lot of piano, blues, soul and jazz influences. These raps glorified women, drugs and money as well, but not as heavily as current “trap” music does (this term will be further explained ). The form of rap that forms “true”/“alive” rap according to the fans who gave the idea for this paper includes artists such as Notorious B.I.G.,  Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg. 

These artists are mostly considered  to be part of “conscience rap”. “onscience rap” Is defined as the form of rap th focusses on the “real” problems such as social injustice (and others mentioned before and unmentioned ones) and w used to inform and express. Usually "gangsta rap" is seen as part of conscience rap but with a more violent undertone. Rappers that were considered “conscience rappers” didn’t necessarily only make conscience rap, they also had songs about woman and the other subjects that we can call “useless” ( they do not influence progress  for the African American community nor do they inform ). But the overall use of rap in this stage of the genre was that 

“Rappers are viewed as the voice of poor, urban African-American youth, whose lives are generally dismissed or misrepresented by the mainstream media. They are the keepers of contemporary African-American working-class history and concerns.” (Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26)). 

Verse 3; The New-School

:So what' is there currently happening in the rap-industry? Unlike the old days, rap has become mainstream. The rap game blew up. The genre has become equally as big as pop and might have even succeeded Rock in our current society. Rap has taken a new face over the years, a multicultural one. Where rap used to be overwhelmingly performed by black artists, the genre has opened up to a wider range of performers. One of the world’s most respected rappers is… white! Eminem has gained the respect of many rap fans from all racial and social backgrounds and from this we can conclude that rap is no longer seen as an only-black music form and that it’s respected as such ( a multicultural platform ). It seems that everyone is allowed to take the stage…

"Keep in mind when brothas start flexing the verbal skillz, it always reflects what's going on politically, socially, and economically." — Musician Davey D  

Where conscience rap used to be on the foreground of the genre, now we see that it' has been replaced with trap and other sub-genres. The subjects in trap music focus on the trap house. This is a house where drugs are either made, stashed or used. Drugs, woman, money and fame have taken the spotlight in the lyrics of late released rap songs. These subjects are heavily glorified in modern day rap music and this resulted in the loss of the deeper meaning within lyrics. 

The deeper meaning is often seen as not that important, as long as it has  a “fire” ( a catchy and hot ) beat and easy sing-a-long lyrics. Lyrics shifted from social problems and living the true desperate life in the streets to drug usage, making millions and flying to other parts of the world. Next to this there is another, enormously small but very interesting, category regarding performers that are aware of the lack of lyrical expertise and that are aware of the modern day commodification of the rap industry. One of these performers is David Andrew Burd, world wide known as Lil Dicky. In his song "professional Rapper" featuring Snoop Dogg, Lil Dicky talks about how he doesn't come from a bad part of town, how he didn't have to struggle for anything in his life and how he had a good education. 

Lil Dicky wants to enter the rap game because "It's the best" , it gives him the platform to express himself and makes him wake up every morning trying to best himself. He wants to make the people who are anti-rap listen to his form of rap and then the fans of rap start to recognizing the anti-rap as ironically one of the last real brands of rap left. He wants to show that you don't have to be resorted to the highway (mainstream rap) to make your own path in the rap game.  So surely there are still rappers that deal with conscience rap, but even conscience rap changed an it’s any longer the core of the genre. Performers who deal with the old way of conscience are often called underground artists. “It almost feels like Hip-Hop has become less of an outlet for social change and more of a distraction from it.” (All Def Digital (2016

Verse 4; The Shift:

The shift from foremost conscience rap covered in "Verse 2; Old-School" to mostly dead or empty lyrics talked about in "Verse 3; New-School" is exactly the problem these fans have that claim “rap has died” have. They comment on ouube videos of old school rap things such as “When rap was still good”, “R.I.P. rap music” and “Rap music has died” . They make these claims based on their belief that the original “real” subjects such as struggle, the hood and being raised by the streets are no longer part of rap music in the way they used to be. In their eyes “alive” rap is only about true struggles, true resistance and true situations of dispair in which people used to live. But if we break down their argument, it seems to be more about lyricism then about rap itself because let’s be honest, the genre itself is very well alive an now maybe more than ever! 

“Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang Gucci Gang, spend the racks on a new Chain. My bitch love doing cocaine. I fuck a bitch I forgot her name.” — Lil Pump, Gucci Gang

A lot of populair artists colaborate with rappers (e.g. Rihanna and Kendrick Lamar) and their songs often have one or more rap verses in it (for example "Love The Way You Lie" by Rihanna featuring Eminem or fifth Harmony and Fetty Wap in "All In My Head"). So we can say with confidence that rap itself as the genre is not dead because it is still being widely practiced, however we cannot deny that it has changed over the years ( and even more rapidly in the last few years ) and by not denying the change we have to critically look at what has changed and on this point one can agree with the commenters that lyricism in populair rap indeed has (sort of) died. Why do I put sort of in brackets? Well, there still are artists such as Joey Bada$$ who value the meaning of lyrics but these are vastly outnumbered by artists with “dead” lyrics. They resemble nothing but their own wealth and no longer seem to try and influence the public sphere except for a few individuals of which we might say that have dead lyrics but somehow still move the general public. ( e.g. Wiz Khalifa on the de-illegilisation of Marihuana ).

So what caused rap to change?

Verse 5;  The Prosperous:

“When you put business into hip-hop, you take a lot out of it. Hip Hop stams from poverty and improvisation and making something out of nothing” (All Def Digital2016, August 24). 

Where rap used to be a counter-culture towards the consumerism and commodification, it has embraced the attitude towards wealth and capitalismt of 21st century (Troop, E. (2016. The genre got drawn into the mainstream music industry and doing so the number of fans grew. The more people listen to these artists, the more albums they will sell and thus the more money they'll make on sales. With this growth of their currency they were able to start spending more because they started earning enough to spend beyond their needs. 

This image of the wealthy rapper attracted a new generation of performers who saw the money and fame and wanted this as well. This in its turn leads to the shift of topics because the newer generation wants to "flex" (show of just how much money they have). This created an entire new sub-culture within Hip-Hop, the flexers. Money, woman and fame are without a doubt shallow subjects that require no difficult lyrics when trying to show off your wealth. Besides, the deeper the lyerground artistrics, the mdore ynouu n move to beeing an underground artist that doesn't make a lot of money. 

"I got 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8 M's in my bank account, in my bank account, in my bank account" — 21 Savage, Bank Account

The easy sing-a-long-lyrics become even hotter with the broad audience and the amount of money being earned therefore reaches an even higher level. At this point brands started capitalizing on the big business that rap started to become. We see brands like "Gucci" change their clothing lines to suit the raw and extrevagant lifestyles of the modern day rappers in order to create a certain micro-hegemony for the luxurious. The wealthiest of the rappers set the tone and the others want to be just like them. He has a Rolie? (Rolex) I'm going to buy a custome Rolie with Ice! (Rolex with diaments). It steered away from rap's origins too much and this decended lyricism into a downward spiral. By turning away from the subjects that were seen as the core of rap it opened up to a wider range of performers because anyone can talk about money drugs and woman.

Verse 6; The Global:

Globalisation also has it's fair sdealhe in the change of rap. Rap music is a mayor part of the African American cultural scene. Rap was born out of poverty, so it was confined to the bad parts of mayor cities where poverty among African American was the highest of The United States. Music has the incredible trade of the easy accessabillity and easy travel. This made it travel to other poor communities and thus spreading nation wide like a wildfire. While traveling across the country, music changed to suit the individual needs of different areas, this is soft globalisation. You can feel like a super star while keeping your music in a local context. 

Historically the U.S.A. has periodes in which it turns into itself and shuts out the world around it and it has periodes in which it focusses outwards. This view is seen as political but we can apply this same model to the music industry. In times that it focusses inwards we can see strong diversity within the rap genre, it focusses on it's own problems and diversity and when the music industry focusses outwards we see a very similar mainstream sound coming from the States. 

here is a strong spreading of music, this happens in waves. K-Pop might be flowing now, but rap has already latched itself onto a stirdy rock. But when rap was rapidly spreading around the world, there was a need for a unified sound that was "easy" to all ears around the world. This came in the form of easy lyrics because this makes you feel like you're performing the song. People want the raw but easy style. This nodges towards global commodifaction and wanting to identify yourself with modern day wealthy and well known rappers. The internet (and explicitly instagram) made this self-portraining image of the rapper spread around the world like a wildfire. This universal identity created a unified sound comming from all corners of the world. Everyone wants to be and sound like the American Rapper.

Verse 7; he conclusion

:As globalisation contributes to the change of cultural patterns, so has it contributed to the change of rap. In a time of acceleration and intensification of the globalised world the change of rap is just as quick as the sudden rise of it. This contributes to a significant and very clear division between the mostly conscience rap music from the old days and from the mainstream rap music that has almost no substenance in our current society. This is the reason why some are not seeing a slight / equally divided change in rap music but rather the death of the genre. 

Rap has never died and probably never will because in order for it to die there has to be not a single person in the world making raps. Yet in a time of superdiversity the rap game seems more neutral then ever. By earning more the subjects in rap music changed in a unifying matter without real heritage and this made the genre open up to performers from different backgrounds. Modern day globalisation in which we have a mainstream music industry that has to appeal to all killed the diversity of the genre. Rap is not dead, lyricism is in a coma.

Figure 2: Marine Le Pen trying to show that she is compassionate Twitter Marine Le Pen

Outtro; A Special Thanks

:A special thanks to the following contributors for information.

44th Anniversary of the Birth of Hip Hop. (2017, August 11). Retrieved November 16, 2017.

Fire. (n.d.). Retrieved November 18, 2017.

Blanchard, B. (1999, July 26). The Social Significance of Rap & Hip-Hop Culture. Retrieved November 16, 2017.

Scarlett, J. Johnson S. Moore T. All Def Digital (2016, August 24). Is Hip Hop Dead? Retrieved November 18, 2017.

Surico, J. (2015, June 18). How the Gangs of 1970s New York Came Together to End Their Wars. Retrieved November 16, 2017.

Troop, E. (2016, October 13). The Commodification of Rap Music: the culture industry versus autonomous art. Retrieved November 18, 2017.

Recommendations