Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Erykah Badu Trashes Today's "Techno Cornball" Hip Hop
by Krysten Clark
Erykah Badu did not bite her tongue when speaking to Underground Charizma over the weekend about the state of hip hop music. Miss Badu, who has collaborated with a number of emcees including Common, The Roots, and Rick Ross, is convinced that today's rap music has been taken over by pop and techno style beats.
When it comes to real emcees rapping over pop techno music, Common's electro-inspired Universal Mind Control and Kanye West's 808s & Heartbreak come to mind. These experimental albums had critics divided, but both projects did well. Universal Mind Control peaked at the number one position on Billboard's Top R&B/Hip Hop and Rap Albums charts, and received a 2010 Grammy nomination for Best Rap Album, which lost to Eminem's Relapse. Ye's platinum 808s & Heartbreak debuted at number one on the Billboard 200 chart and was named one of the best albums of the decade by Rolling Stone magazine.
But Ms. Badu doesn't see the experimentation in techno as genius, rather, she sees the recent turn of rap music into electro-pop as something that damages the music more than helps it.
"How y'all gone stand by and let our music turn into pop techno cornball ass music. We don't own our music no more. Come to think of it, did we ever own it? When I say own our music, I'm not talking bout the artist I'm talking about the people. Let me be quiet. I wanna hear from the young people," said Badu.
She continued, "Easy for me to complain about this techno-pop cause I have a taste for something else. But how do u feel? These rappers ought to be ashamed of they damn selves; I'm talking bout the MCs rapping over this pop techno music. I believe in pimpin' the system but got damn! Not like this."
However, the electro-hop movement isn't new to hip hop, instead regenerated. The granddaddy of hip hop himself, Afrika Bambaata, cultured the electro-funk sound that inspired artists today like Pharrell, Cee-Lo and Black Eyed Peas.
So, are these artists pimpin' the system or adopting a sound that has slowly been developing since the 80s?
While the Medulla Oblongata admits that she loves house and techno music from time to time, she's not ready to say adios to the "boom, bip, and the hump," that made her fall in love with it in the first place
Source: Black Voices