Erick Sermon Claims Hip-Hop Is Currently Stagnant
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Erick Sermon isn’t feeling today’s state of Hip-Hop. During an interview with the Say Word! Podcast, Sermon was asked his thoughts on the storied genre, with the legendary emcee admitting he isn’t a fan. The rapper even claimed that Hip-Hop in its current form isn’t Hip-Hop — in any way.
“I just think that Hip-Hop is just not Hip-Hop. I just think that they should change the name. No disrespect, but that’s not what that is… Hip Hop can evolve, but this is not evolving. Evolving is Melle Mel to Rakim stage to the whole nine, to Wu-Tang to Murder Inc., DMX — that’s evolving. Y’know, Cam’ron. Dipset — that’s evolving,” he said.
“And some of them are saying they aren’t even rappers. They’re calling it something else [like] a vibe or something. But they can’t be — that’s not what this culture is about. This culture is about content. It’s about saying something that resonates and feels like something. We have bars, technique, flow, beats and rhymes. Thats the culture. When you have Offset talking, Offset is actually saying, ‘Yo, sh*t is f**ked up and nobody wants to hear the content.’ When Nicki Minaj is saying, ‘It ain’t about talent it’s about popularity.’ People are speaking on [this]… Music is in somewhat of a bind because it’s stuck in one place.”
Joe Budden also previously expressed his uncertainty for Hip-Hop’s future. The talking head expressed his opinion on the culture during a recent appearance on The Gauds Show. His pessimistic stance found the former rapper describing the future of Hip-Hop as “dark.”
“Everybody can’t go do a show, everybody can’t get a song on a playlist,” he said to begin a long rant. “Everybody can’t access their fans, or the information behind these units that they’re moving. It’s dark out there… [People] don’t know how to respond to AI, label people are leaving for the tech companies, they’re playing all types of stock games at the top… their artists are not getting one red penny. It’s disgusting out there.”
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