NOSTALGIA , MTV & HIP HOP

— n

 a yearning for the return of past ,often in idealised form

        These days I 'm having a strong sense of nostalgia creep up my mind ,so much so that it came out as my first blog post. Since my days of turning 18 , I have got this sense of adulthood and on the flipside missing them good old childhood days.

     It all started with music. Like every 13 yr old kid ,I would shamelessly watch pop princesses ,boy bands and the likes of Eminem, 50 cent on MTV endlessly. Eminem ,my then idol, would inspire me so I would go on to rap. Yeah, I was enthralled by their ‘rags to riches’ stories, ’Money,power,respect’ as LOX put it.

Eminem

      But soon, very soon I would realise 99.5% of artists on MTV are nothing but commercial gimmicks, mere puppets in the hands of their production houses. No wonder Immortal Technique in his song Industrial Revolution says "here's a quotable for every single record exec, get your fucking hands out my pocket nigga like Malcolm X" .It is the prostitution of art in the hands of production houses who get richer and richer  while the artist  has to do what the audience and inevitably producers want to and not the other way round. I   don’t need to even spew up a conspiracy theory to say MTV killed music. MUSIC IS DEAD.

Immortal Technique

Malcolm X

           Starting with hip hop genre, lets take the example of the most famous music producer Dr. Dre. He was the one who, since his album, THE CHRONIC , popularised the verse-chorus-verse-course structure.eg .Nuthin but a G thang .This led artists to strive for more and more catchy choruses so that kids , chics can sing-along. Eminem [whom I respected for the straight forward and raw person he was] was rendered a hip pop artsist by Dre.

Dr. Dre's The Chronic

By the way, Dre is the same guy to have creative differences with RAKIM , [your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper, who popularised multi-syllabic in-rhymes] and not just the simple a-b-a-b rhyme scheme.
eg. Microphone Fiend

Eric B. & Rakim[Hip Hop's Best Duo]

         I went deeper and deeper[by which I mean older and older] ,listened to underground rappers from those days who spoke of socio-politics, science, history ,current affairs ,in short, everything. I  bet, a single rapper from that time could defeat today's hundred rappers, who have fallen,enough to use auto-tune like lil wayne.

Big Daddy Kane

KRS-One[Knowledge Reigns Supreme Over Nearly Everyone]

Chuck D of Public Enemy

Kool G Rap

Biz Markie

RUN-DMC

           Rakim Allah, Big Daddy Kane, KRS-One,Chuck D ,Biz Markie, Kool G Rap belonged to the golden age of hip hop ,between the 80s and 90s. This was  the time when it had grown all complex ,much evolved from  simple rhymes thrown by Afrocentric DJs when they came to the Bronx and Queens.This implies that Dr. Dre got us to where it all started from.

DJ Herc

Melle Mel of Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Five was the 1st rapper to call himself a MC

          No one can appreciate hip hop  for what it is today,  and I don’t even blame them. Artists haven’t given heed to the saying ”Rap to express,not impress ” and that is why as NAS put  “HIP HOP IS DEAD”