ragedsycokiller

1y

He is the wrong person to say that in a media perspective lol. Tyler puts that message across much better. Vince's tone/direction with that convo is still one of looking down on someone lol, but that's with the context that he grew up in a dangerous environment

Same way he talks about just having friends over in this interview

If this was a regular convo in person, no one would think twice about it. Since this is an interviews being able to be seen by the world, I think it has a different impact

etuev

1y

We're on the same page. You're looking in the medium term. I think in the long term, people shouldn't be called that if they want to be a good person. To be a low life who doesn't support their community, grow as a person and love people should be what is regarded as being a b***h

AGoodBoyo

1y

Ask yourself if you’d do this dumb s*** when you’re worth half a billion dollars and people are getting locked up over snitching on themselves in their lyrics.
And remember, this isn’t some illiterate Atlanta hood rat we are talking about. This is drake.

etuev

1y

Kanye said it himself about Drake in 2018, "He running around like he pac", that's because Drake is the new modern day Pac. He's really running around with a strap on his hip, has killer goons on command, is affiliated with the mafia, and has bodyguards that look like they eat nails in a bowl of blood. He had Kanye fearing for his dear life and kids lives in 2018 when the beef was popping. Drake really is the demon of Calabasas and Hollywood.

We're looking at a real life Godfather Michael Corleone type figure, a gang affiliated Michael Jackson tier pop-star but on a much grander scale than MJ ever was. There's so many stories of Drake's getting rude yutes clapped up or performing mob boss gestures like throat slices, clapping his hands, etc. Drake dines at mafia style restaurants like The Nice Guy/Delilah in Hollywod. And he has enough power to bully superstar celebrities like Tory and Kanye around and make them think twice about their actions.

People love to call Drake soft or sensitive but this further proves that Drake is the demonic, goon employing thug, that Tupac and Biggie were thought to be. Drake is one of the realest threats in the rap game and can get anyone killed if he wishes.

This n***a Drizzy Corleone runs every corner and inch of Canada and claimed it as his own. For the first time in forever we're looking at an invincible GOAT who really lives the stories.

slimreapercantrap

1y

ur wording is a bit ridiculous (intentionally im sure) but what ur saying rlly isn't that unbelievable. It's not like this is unprecedented in any way, I mean back in the day they said Frank Sinatra had the power to call hits on people, and its not like he came up on the corner lol

Skinn Foley

1y

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.

Kellzz

1y

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

Skinn Foley

1y

Funnily enough too, if you talk to a lot of real oldheads, like people who were on the groundfloor during the mid-to-late 80s as rap's golden age began to take off, a lot of people from that era consider 1992 to be the end of the golden age and the beginning of hip hop being pimped out commercially.

ChrisRich

1y

I think Ye did the GD thing because of the drill wave during the time - Pop Smoke , Lil Durk, Moneybagg Yo, Polo G , Fivio - hip hop was very street 2020/2021

Skinn Foley

1y

It was okay when he just like dabbled in it in a self-aware way but bro really tryna sell us Drizzy Corleone right now and it's not working

insertcoolnamehere

1y

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

Free YoungBoy

1y

The worst thing that happened to rap was making niggas feel like they’re lame or corny for not fw street s***.

In today’s climate you can’t even be respected as a rapper without being a a hood nigga or a street adjacent nigga.

It’s to the point where you even have anime niggas like Juice (RIP) who felt like they had to throw in some street into their music.

elder

1y

I think drakes people are really like that so I think that bar may have some truth to it. Never know what happens behind the scenes

etuev

1y

Kanye said it himself about Drake in 2018, "He running around like he pac", that's because Drake is the new modern day Pac. He's really running around with a strap on his hip, has killer goons on command, is affiliated with the mafia, and has bodyguards that look like they eat nails in a bowl of blood. He had Kanye fearing for his dear life and kids lives in 2018 when the beef was popping. Drake really is the demon of Calabasas and Hollywood.

We're looking at a real life Godfather Michael Corleone type figure, a gang affiliated Michael Jackson tier pop-star but on a much grander scale than MJ ever was. There's so many stories of Drake's getting rude yutes clapped up or performing mob boss gestures like throat slices, clapping his hands, etc. Drake dines at mafia style restaurants like The Nice Guy/Delilah in Hollywod. And he has enough power to bully superstar celebrities like Tory and Kanye around and make them think twice about their actions.

People love to call Drake soft or sensitive but this further proves that Drake is the demonic, goon employing thug, that Tupac and Biggie were thought to be. Drake is one of the realest threats in the rap game and can get anyone killed if he wishes.

This n***a Drizzy Corleone runs every corner and inch of Canada and claimed it as his own. For the first time in forever we're looking at an invincible GOAT who really lives the stories.

SLYOOPER TIMBO

1y

And on the topic of Aubrey he caught flack by being vulnerable in his music. People called him gay back in the day. He got the Sisqo treatment

SegaDreamFlash

1y

Lowkey if you pay attention Drake was leaning into the mafioso s*** since Take Care lol he just went mask off years later

SegaDreamFlash

1y

Lowkey if you pay attention Drake was leaning into the mafioso s*** since Take Care lol he just went mask off years later

browser

1y

“You think drake would catch a body like that you never know” showed he understood that that should be a rarity/sprinkled around thing that was neat every now and then because he had come so far without it. Then he popped outta nowhere with muscles and gun talk after the Meek situation lol

He even used to say things like “sometimes I wish I could make gun bars like everyone else” lol my how times have changed

browser

1y

“You think drake would catch a body like that you never know” showed he understood that that should be a rarity/sprinkled around thing that was neat every now and then because he had come so far without it. Then he popped outta nowhere with muscles and gun talk after the Meek situation lol

He even used to say things like “sometimes I wish I could make gun bars like everyone else” lol my how times have changed

tomorrow volverse

1y

nah
I don’t think rap pressures you to act hard
I think the streets and rap culture have been connected since rap started in the Bronx, and most mainstream rappers have had some type of ties to the streets even if they are a conscious rapper. People like Chance The Rapper, Vic Mensa, Ye, Common, LL Cool J, MC Hammer, and even Kriss Kross have had some connections in gang culture. they just don’t make it the centerpiece of their image or the music they make.

Rappers have always been tied to gangs bc they typically don’t come from upper class backgrounds that can support them grinding towards an unpaid music career like Taylor Swift, Clairo, and Ariana Grande did. lots of street dudes with money are willing to bankroll a rapper with blood money in order to transition into a somewhat legitimate business and in turn funnel that artists’ earnings back into the gang. Look at the circumstances surrounding the demise of Juice WRLD.
I think it’s a symbiotic relationship for a lot of rappers.

Other people mention extortion, which does occur, but outside of that, I think a lot of rappers legitimately have gang ties.