Inspired by @browser (cause it should be a thread on this aspect of this s***), does rap have a pressure on artists to “ portray” themselves as hard?

From Chris Brown’s temporary blood membership, to Ye temporarily walking round like he big GD during Donda 2 era, to Carti gangbanging on wax, to Drake’s friends that “can’t take a joke”, to Ja Morant (cause bball and rap are relatives), to Sada Baby joining the bloods at 22, to Tupac…pretty much doing the same thing, and other cases

Is there this influence and pressure that is put on niggas within this rap/culture s*** that makes it so ppl have to act hard or more rougher than how they really are? I think back to old Lupe interviews where he talked about how even though his background is really from there (and as its been validated by friends of him throughout these recent years) that he hates the hood and tried to move past that side of himself and not glorify it.

And how we used to laugh and meme niggas like slim jesus out the goddamn room. And now we unironically take cacs like Lil Mabu (who was a model student at a prep school) serious now.

Does this rap s*** put a battery in the back of niggas that otherwise woulda just been cool niggas that didn’t have to mob boss or gangbang and affiliate with niggas they never knew until they got rich?

tl;dr: cause honestly Vince Staples said it best

Feel like a lot of these dudes are getting extorted and they can claim by association is the reality. Also there’s some romanticizing of being from the streets that is compounded by the fact that rap music is basically centered around these days. Overall just not a good look and gives me the feeling that we need a reset like we did in the mid to late 00s

Yeah extortion is legit I think ppl said that was the reason why Chris started tripping and @Nikedufflebag theory that Ye might’ve been going through the same thing.

The romanticization is crazy when you hear these little kids using the slang man

nvr heard of lil mabu

One of the new NY drill rappers comin up

We could use another “Kanye” like how he was during the Vs 50 beef

Niggas dont even look at sales no more, its what is on tiktok lmao

B.O.B has to be the greatest example of this

Yea it does

link please

The extortion s*** is beyond confirmed its true for any rapper that u gotta have someone vouch for u or have security 24/7 to guarantee safety

Breaking news violence is glorified in america

Good Kid in a Mad City…

that video is hilarious

No

And ironically enough I was watching the Slim Jesus video yesterday @op when he was talking about how he was clowned for saying he likes rapping about it but not being about but Lil Tecca didn’t get that same pushback when he did the same thing.

Definitely. There's a certain level of "hard" you're expected to be or struggle you're expected to have endured if you're a rapper. Hard to gain attention if that's not you and it's why we have rappers like Drake making up stories about ordering hits

I definitely think majority of KTT only knows black people through rap music

I think the void that's slowly being filled is that aggressive, intimidating, raw conscious rap petered out of style in the mainstream beginning in the early 90s (if not the late 80s), so the only viable and largely known, modern ability for artists to be taken seriously as being "hard" in some capacity comes from the avenue of certain kinds of trap, drill, and "gangsta rap" in general.

Public Enemy for example could make unbelievably hard music that portrayed Chuck D in a tough and even intimidating light but did so without having to cater to vulgar masculine stereotypes and creating a facade for how his life was to seem "hood". Ironically enough, a lot of old PE records had a lot of respect in the "hood" that many modern wannabe trap artists/gangsta rappers lack despite trying to come across as either being "from the streets" or "in touch with the streets", Drake being one of many examples of this gap between public image and actual resonance in the communities and environments Drake tries to invoke to prove his "street cred".

At some point in the 2000s, "conscious rap" became associated with smooth, polite, and inoffensive music that had a "message", which largely extracted the most fundamental aspect about acts like Public Enemy, Paris, the political sides of Ice Cube, Dead Prez, KRS-One, etc, so gripping, in that the fury against injustice of some kind was missing from the music. It was seen as almost vulgar or "ignorant" to make aggressive rap music at all, especially by a lot of backpacker movements in the 2000s that thought such a sound was poorly representing "real hip hop", the vision for "real hip hop" in their eyes being an extremely narrow, polished, and one-sided perspective of the 90s jazz rap movement. Thus, the ability to make cathartic, "hard" music that could be taken seriously got squeezed out of the industry in a lot of ways, and made "real hip hop" perceived as this overly polite and in some cases whitewashed, tame style of music, that is largely alien to the grassroots of the abrasive, confrontational sound of hip hop in all its forms, whereas trap is obviously much more belligerent, cathartic, and raw sonically, at least outside of the times that it is co-opted into pop music of some kind.

There's a slow fomenting of "exciting" and "raw" conscious rap bubbling up in the underground but we still have a ways to go before we start getting s*** like "Fight the Power", "Sound of Da Police", "It's Bigger Than Hip Hop", "m.A.A.d City", etc, up to the forefront of the culture. Kendrick is basically the only big rapper who comes with that adrenaline pumping style of conscious rap in the mainstream and even in the underground itself, it's a rarity but has grown since the start of the 2020s. People need to see that anger and rage at something, be it systemic injustice or everyday life in poverty/crime can be expressed effectively and confrontationally outside of the context of trying to be "street", because a lot of modern street music doesn't even do a good job at illuminating the larger reality that "street life" is born out of to begin with. I blame Dre for that development frankly.

This would hit if Drake got put on the map making that music. But he wasn’t.

If the biggest rapper feels pressure to put on this persona, what does that tell you about everyone else? Rappers feel the need to do the gangster/street thing or the depressed/drug thing because that's what the people want

This is the s*** that needs to come back

And the nigga was backed by Baby Slim and J Prince. And was running around with Wayne. That ain’t good influence

i could really use a wish right now wish right now