With the 2009 VH1 Hip-Hop Honors soon approaching, I thought this would be interesting to post. Reason being is, that the honors this year are a tribute to the Def Jam legacy. KRS-One seems to think that the honor comes a little tainted though. Peep his feelings about the legendary record label below.
I think I understand what KRS is saying but at the same time, I feel like part of what he's saying is inaccurate. Yes, over the years the quality of music from Def Jam has gone down. However, the problematic artists and music is NOT coming from Def Jam. I looked up artists like Soulja Boy, The GS Boyz, etc; and they are not even on the label. Hip-hop is suffering because of the artists and the listeners. Artists are wrong for putting out wack music. Listeners are wrong for buying into and supporting said music. Labels and the media are just putting out there what makes money. We can't fault them totally for that. If people stop buying into crap rap, the labels/media would stop pushing it because they wouldn't make any money off it. If people threw their support behind REAL artists, labels/media would recognize and push more quality artists and music. And artists would step their game up accordingly. You get back, what you put out there. Everyone in the hip-hop community holds some responsibility for the decline of the culture. And it can only be turned around if we all own up to that factor and do our parts to change it. That's just my opinion and it's really a debatable topic. But I do stand strong on the point, that it is not just one single entity killing hip-hop. And that in fact that there are many poisonous elements at work that are destroying the game. Thoughts? I'd really love a discussion on this one. It's a passionate subject for me. So leave some comments people! -MinM
Wow. Kris did not hold back.
Posted by: Solomon Jazz | September 29, 2009 at 09:35 AM