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Hip Hop Today -- Strictly Business:

When I wrote that last entry about Kanye West and A Tribe Called Quest, it got me thinking about how rap has changed over the past 15 years, how rappers have begun to take themselves more/too seriously and, like EPMD said, treat hip hop as "strictly business". Back in the early 90's, you had a bunch of groups like Tribe, Leaders of the New School, Nice 'N Smooth and Lords of the Underground who were able to use humor in their songs and still sell a lot of records. On the other hand, today you have rappers like Kanye who take themselves way too seriously, or you have a bunch studio gangsters who use their entire albums doing the lyrical equivalent of mean-mugging. While many of these newer artists seem to enjoy the money they're making, they don't seem to actually enjoy the music itself. Its like a 9-to-5 for them, except the pay is a lot higher and there is a greater chance of being shot at.

These days, using humor in hip hop has become such a faux pas that the term "punchline rapper" is considered a serious insult -- to the point where Tony Yayo, possibly the least skilled rapper to get a deal from a major label since Kobe, was able to make, with a straight face, the claim that he was a better mc than Jadakiss simply because Jada "is just a punchline rapper" on MTV's The Shop.

To some extent, I think the cause for this has been the fact that the stakes are much higher for a hip hop artist today, as hip hop has seen increasing success commercially. Back when Tribe was out, when record labels had no problem making their artists sign very unfavorable contracts, they weren't making much money from their records so they didn't have much to lose by taking risks in their music. Artists today, though, can risk millions by ruining their image -- and in hip hop these days, a hardcore/serious image is going to sell a lot more than anything else.

A pretty good example of this problem is demonstrated by Canadian rapper Bishop. In 2001, he put out the single U Know U Ghetto, which has some of the funniest lines I've heard in a rap:

U know u ghetto heat the house with the oven
And anybody famous from the hood your cousin
U know u ghetto cussin out your teacer
And when somethin happen your mama screamin "Lord Jesus!"
When you use street knowledge
Graduate from school and go to jail instead of college
U know u ghetto bar-b-cuein every holiday
Pizza man wont even deliver around your way

This track was in fairly heavy rotation on BET and The Box (though I don't remember ever seeing it on Mtv), and was the main focus for the marketing of his album. On Bishop's album, also titled U Know U Ghetto, the rest of the tracks had a harder edge, without any sign of the humor from U Know. The album did not do well commercially, and Bishop has not released any more albums in the U.S.

Bishop has actually been accused of ripping off the idea for this song from Kardinal Offishall, who put out "U R Ghetto" a few months before Bishop.

Download U Know U Ghetto (mp3) and let me know what you think of it.

Bishop's album is no longer in print, but you can try to pick up a used copy.