Sunday, December 14, 2008

Lyricism Dead?

Styles P says lyricism is dead!



Personally i don't think lyricism is over. Lupe,Common,Mos Def,Kanye,Q-Tip,Pharrel among others are big-and i don't see them dying out soon. I personally have a deep respect for lyricism and i created a blog dedicated to it. (LiveLyricism)

Your Thoughts?

23 comments:

S-Preme said...

haha...styles P...this is the same nigga that said only girls should have swag...and that guys who spend more than 2 minutes (yes he literally said 2 minutes) are gay...styles P...HA!

he mad cuz he doesnt comprehend Lupe, Common and the likes...Chi towns a lil too fast for him

Anonymous said...

i dont think styles is tlkin about those artist... he is tlking industry wide... he means that before companies wanted artist that can drop full albums. you do not see that to much anymore and most of those artist that do come out lyrically spitting like common, mos, consequence... dont sell as much as the cross over rappers. yet again another statement taken out of context... lmao...



oh for the dummies... drudgery is another word for grind...

Tha Trufe said...

Lyricism is definitely dead. Face the facts. Stop tryna find an excuse to ignore it. The best lyricists in the game (i.e. Nas, Lupe, Common just to name a few) ain't movin the units they should be, or would have been movin had they been out about 10 years ago, when lyricism meant somethin. Nowadays, if you got a sick beat, a nice hook, a stupid dance, or T-Pain or Lil Wayne on yo track, you good. That's what the majority of these consumers wanna hear nowadays. People ain't tryna hear no shit that'll make them touch they rewind button. They too busy gettin high, listen to some Weezy shit that you gone catch at the first listen. I don't kno what people define "lyrical" as, but trust, it's not just having a positive message behind yo shit. You can spit some positive shit and/or some shit that's different from the norm as far as commercial rappers go, and still be wack lyrically.

And for the record, Styles would shit on 95% of these commercial rappers out here lyrically. If you sayin Styles ain't lyrical, you prolly ain't been listenin to rap long enough to kno what it means.

S-Preme said...

um...NO ONE moves units...the music industry is dead...and for Styles P to say that lyricism is dead because of sales, shows that hes behind the times...nobody sells like they should, only SUPERSTARS do, and it has ALWAYS been that way...2pac didn't sell, Biggie sold cuz he had club bangers like juicy and hypnotize...shit that doesnt translate to the club and radio NEVER sold

Anonymous said...

who hasnt listened to rap?? nigga i guarantee i'm older than you. styles P aint shit...check him on Murs, Big L, 2pac, Nas, Jay, Biggie, Eminem, Rakim, Erik B, KRS ONe...if you wanna talk about long term...new school? Common (old school too), Lupe, Kanye, Chip the Ripper, UNI, Wale...LYRICAL

Anonymous said...

Styles has a point. Not many people care for solid rhyming skills in this day and age, which would account for the popularity of garbage rappers selling records. Wayne traded in his skills on The Carter 3 for some commercially minded tracks, and it got him a million in a week. It's sad to say, but in Hip Hop, quality doesn't mean much anymore.
And in my opinion, Styles P is a pretty decent rapper. He's not in my top ten(or twenty, for that matter), but I like some of his songs.

S-Preme said...

wait a minute...Wayne never had lyrics. Sure he had some clever one liners on his mixtapes, but mr. waabity waabity drop it like its hot was never a lyricist.

i don't get why people don't give C3 its props...WAY more artistic than C1 and C2

Anonymous said...

1. Kanye is NOT a lyricist. dope musician, brilliant creatively, innovative artist. lyricist? no. never has been...but he tries hard.

2. if ye' gets the "lyricist" nod, then T.I. should definitely be in the conversation. he's been lyrical, and even more so on Paper Trail...but you know niggas in the south gotta turn flips and wear bells just for people to notice. (see Andre 3000, who is JUST now getting that top 5 out currently nod when he's been that since ATLiens ATLEAST...1996. hell big boi as well. maybe its the southern drawl....hmmmmmm

just had to get that out.

S-Preme said...

Kanye West

"there's somethin about the way that Nina Simone's piano flow, it's like a michaelangelo, painted a portrait of Maya Angelou, and gave it to a sick poet, for they antidote, if music gets you choked up, this is the tree and the rope..."

"i'm a chicagoan, till chicago end, until we blow like chicago wind, i don't know what's better, gettin laid or gettin paid, I just know when I'm gettin one the other's gettin away..."

Kanye West IS a dope lyricist, and if you ever venture outside of his pop records, you'd see that

TI isn't lyrical, he's just real. 3Stacks is a goon. Big Boi is too. Niggas are underrated, but that's not cuz they from the south, its cuz they are left

Anonymous said...

Turbo got lyrics!
-Cinque

L.F.I.(Imaghostwriter2) said...

*Sigh* ok guys- Kanye is a Lyricist and although i hate to say it (S-Preme) Lil Wayne is too. Lil Wayne kinda turned on lyricism but in his mixtape days he had some really lyrical lines
"Im prolly in the sky flyin with the fishes, or maybe in the ocean- swimmin with the pigeons, my world is diffrent like dwayne wayne..." and i dont fell like writing more.

He had some crazy concepts and ideas but he kinda feel off that and traded it on for simplicity. As far as Kanye goes- HELL YEA he's a lyricist. Check out Homecoming on graduation. Personifying a city as a girl in a way you cant tell it's chicago till you reach the end is def. lyricism.

GET AT ME!

LIVELYRICISM.BLOGSPOT.COM

Anonymous said...

HELL NO!
to be honest i think lyricism is slowly risin atm
with new cats like kid cudi, charles hamilton and wale and the older ones finally gaining mainstream success (common & kweli both went #1 with their latest albums).

Anonymous said...

i mean...yea those are nice kanye lines, but thats not a way to make a strong case for dude. some shinin lines. but you can't put dude in the same stratosphere as

nas
common
mos def
lupe
talib
jay
big pun
raekwon
ghostface
3 stacks

^those are lyricists. kanye is a great rapper, but he ain't in that lane. throw up dope quotes, i know those lines...i was followin dude when he was doin the hook on Never Change off the Blueprint and before. he's a genius...i love the guy, but he doesn't hold a candle to those dudes above.

Anonymous said...

and if you wanna throw up lines, as far as lyrics go, i could just mention T.I. on Swagger Like Us...whole verse, AND the Superstar remix...whole verse. shrug* multi-syllable rhymes galore, flow, etc etc etc...but would that substantiate my argument?

Anonymous said...

on feb 6th 2008 Souljaboytellem.com had sold 775,000, so i can almost guarantee it went platinum

and charles hamilton will not sell and or disprove the haters

Anonymous said...

true statement^

charles hamilton's career will end as suddenly as it seemed to begin. these so called "new school" cats to watch; asher roth, c.hamilton, etc...their subject matter is lacking. sure they're talented lyrically, but thats not the end all be all to success. they have their wordplay n shit, witty lines...but what are they REALLY sayin other than "oh, we're the future...so and and so forth sucks and we're better". all that whining gets u no where.

lupe never had to say it. he just made great music, and we said it for him. <---thats what matters.

Tha Trufe said...

S-Preme, Wayne moved a mill out the gates. Even Soulja Boy sold a million copies. So don't say NO ONE moves units. Those who should be movin units, don't move units. You say 2Pac didn't sell? Me Against The World sold 2 million copies, and what club single did he drop from that album? "Dear Mama"? All Eyes on Me sold 9 million copies (which is only about 4.5 million units since it was a double album, but still), and what club singles did he drop from that? "California Love"? "How Do U Want It"? Pac NEVER made music meant for the club or the radio, Pac did him, and he still moved units.
On to Mr. Anonymous. You got the nerve to put Murs in your list of lyricists, over Holiday? Mr. "L dot A dot, Californi-A hot"? Get that wack ass shit outta here. Again, just cuz you ain't talkin that murder shit, or that commercial shit, or cuz you underground don't make you a lyricist. Spittin lyrical shit makes you a lyricist. And while we on the subject, neither Biggie or 2Pac were the best lyricists. They was more successful, but you can't honestly say in your list of best dead LYRICISTS that they rank higher than Big L, and still claim you know lyricism.
Wayne and Kanye ain't never been lyricists either. Droppin a few hot lines don't make you a lyricist. Hell, even Amare Stoudemire gone hit a three pointer every now and then. That don't make him a 3-point shooter tho does it?

S-Preme said...

As for Wayne and Souljaboy selling like that, find me 5 more hiphop albums that went platinum in 07-08? Graduation. Paper Trail...niggas don't sell records. SUPERSTARS sell records, and that's only again because of CLUB SINGLES. That's the only way to move units. Pac and Biggie sales are inflated by their death and subsequent mega sales. 50 went platinum, Eminem went platinum. It took Nas' BEST record like a year and half to go plat. Jay used to go plat, now it takes him over a year. people just don't buy records, so i would say the formal music industry is dead, not lyricism. And I never put Kanye on the same level as those niggas, but just because Scottie Pippen wasn't on Jordan's level, that doesn't mean he's not a damn good basketball player

Anonymous said...

he prolly ain't heard bout Wale, CuDi, mickey factz, and charles hamilton...nd Mibbs from Pac Div...lyricism is still there!

Anonymous said...

i never said ye ain't dope. and even with that list of lyricists...all those guys aren't on the same level of lyricism. there is a hierarchy, but they are all lyricists.

ye is dope, his niche just ain't lyricism. never has been. niggas just don't fall asleep and wake up lyrical either, so he prolly never will be. he's still one of the best hip hip acts out these days. no question.

808's & heartbreak up!

Anonymous said...

bottom line? Styles P is a haaater

Anonymous said...

lyricism aint dead. styles p is just wack.. he aint a good enough/ marketable rapper.. digg? people are going to want to listen to a different type of music here and there..

who died and made hip hop god?

http://hazezoos.blogspot.com

Anonymous said...

Lupe is one of the few people in Hip Hop these days that actually cares what his songs are about and what effect they have on the people that listen them. His lyrics get across his message, and his message is always amazing and fresh too... you just have to be smart to understand him. Just like it says in Dumb it Down, he ain't dumb down nothin'.

"But can't tap the source
need something to nourish my mind
I know we all lose quite a bit in life
Only to gain some
Life of the dark winding roads we came from
But I move with the night
so I'm used to the shade
And never lose sight
bringing truth back to the game"
-Tak