The reason why he utilized the Mos and Talib connections is so they could legitimize him tho, pretty sure all parties talked about it in that way.

And I think it was some forums in the archive back in the early 2000s or something that was saying he's not "real hip hop" along the lines of that

The Ecstatic is my favorite rap record ever, but I’d be more interested in hearing his opinion if his output in the last 15 years was more impressive.

Yeah that’s a good comparison

Even LL lowkey took it too far, ofc people still consider him hip hop but when I was growing up in the early 2000s people looked at LL more as a pop rapper and no one was really saying “go back and check LL albums” as much as you’d hear about Rakim Kane G Rap etc. there’s something to it because the pop stardom can fade. And culturally LL lowkey doesn’t have as much juice or legacy as he probably should, and it’s because he made himself seem too pop and it’s just not a great look in hip hop

Drake needs to adopt this mindset:

Lol yasiin getting washed by drake today tbh. Hate to say it

It's not going to happen

There's nothing of substance here

Drake is supposedly taking a break

Yasiin doesn't care like that

It's not a thing lol

Idk, even in top female rapper conversations I always see the fact that she sang more be brought up on why it’s hard to put her up there even though she’s a legend in hop hop in her own right and has spit some of the most beautiful lyrics.

At a point it’s like you have to remove a part of these artist discography that have more of a crossover appeal/style just to fit them in a box when comparing them with other top dawgs that didn’t rely on crossover appeal as much.

Even though I understand what Mos is saying, I think Drake is hop hop at his core. It’s just when you add in all of the other genre blurring music he ended up making over the years it gets easier to classify him as pop because the sound of the music and structure for his most popular songs reflect that style.

It's not that deep lol

That’s some obscure s*** if you have to find it an archive though lol idk I really don’t think it was as big of a convo as it is around drake. Because musically his s*** was clearly hip hop. With Ye it was more of the “is he an MC or not” thing rather than “hip hop or not”

Drake not taking a break he’s dropping later this year and will probably do a feature dissing Mos within the next month or 2

I LOVE THIS MALL

Hip hop had a pretty negative view of pop before Drake too

Willing to put some good money on the idea that Mos Def heard "Hold On We're Going Home," and was bamboozled when he heard that Drake was a rapper.

Yeah exactly. This does get brought up, not everyone drinks the Lauryn hill cool aid. It is legitimately hard to place a hybrid up against people who mostly rap and compare it

This is the best post itt

Yep

I love when I’m at Target and Tuscan Leather comes on over the speakers

It moves from being an art form for the culture to being an art form for mass consumption

Although one can bleed into the other
(ex. Doing it for the culture can mean doing it for your community) at their core both paths have very different results

Hip Hop originally was never about mass consumption but now that is the average rappers aspiration which begs the question is Hip Hop the new Pop

Drake career is more about mass consumption than anything else which makes him Pop

That’s why Mos said it’s Target music

Funny thing is majority of his discography is rap and r&b.

I think purists who go w/ the Drake is pop take don’t actually listen to him, but just heard what gets circulated the most on the radio.

Not asking as an insult but how old are you?

2007-2009 this was totally a thing especially when Lollipop was on the charts

Naaah b. Around Da Drought 3-Carter III, even dustheads like KRS-One were giving Wayne mad props

Unfortunately, songs like that won’t be drake’s legacy. And that’s his own doing. It is what it is. He likes singing as much as rapping

Will.I.Am could go back and drop the most barred out album, returning to the roots yet majority of the world still gonna know him for “Let’s Get (Redacted)” with the Fergie n them.

Not to compare the 2 but I can understand why someone would say they make commercial/pop/easy listening music, because they do.

Drake really been an overall net negative for rap and is leading the genre to its death

Yeah, I remember all my niggas calling Wayne pop every time he dropped a mixtape they said he wasn’t even hip hop no more