We should all agree that hip hop had its most creative and most successful periods in the 90s, this era saw the beauty behind genuine creativity of talented rappers like Dre Dre, 2pac, B.I.G Nas,Naughty By Nature, Wu Tang Clan, Cyress hill, House Of Pain, Kriss Kross, Da Brat, MC Lyte, Rage, Queen Latifah, Yoyo,Missy,Timberland, Snoop Dogg, Warren G, Dogg Pound, Main Source, Tribe Called Quest, Coolio, Das Efx, Onyx, Fu-Schnickens, Jay Z ! The list goes on and on. These were the years rap music finally gained worldwide attention and rap went from "Ban rap music" public protest to BBC playing "If i ruled the world" by Nas, rap entered the Guinness Book Of Records and sadly rap got so big that it influenced a territorial dispute between the east coast and the west coast in the United States.
In all this, One main question needs to be asked, what made rap gain such notable influence in this era often referred to as the golden age? rap music exist officially since 1979 with acts like the Sugar Hill Gang with the song "Rappers delight" Kurtis Blow's "Christmas Rapping " Spoonie G's "Spoonin' Rap" etc, and the early and late 80s saw the entry of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, Ice T, Run DMC, Melli Mel, LL Cool J, Erik B & Rakim, NWA, Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince, Big Daddy Kane, Too Short, Cool Moe Dee and host of others but with all this powerful names and talent making this era hot like fire, hot enough to heat up a young school boy like me far away in Nigeria,the 80s was still nothing compared to the blossom of the 90s with the G funk era,the Death-row dynasty, So So Def domination, the Bad Boy take over, and the closing of the 90s curtain by Roc-A-Fella Empire, Wow! 10 years of remarkable music and events that shaped the history of hip hop into what it is today. This leads me to further questioning, is rap still RAP MUSIC? is hip-hop still what it was in the 90s?
Today hip-hop has given birth to Sub genres like Alternative hip hop – Conscious hip hop – Experimental hip hop – Homo hop – Hardcore hip hop – Horrorcore – Instrumental hip hop e.t.c and another form called Fusion Genre which consist of Country rap – Hip hop soul – Hip house – Crunk – Hyphy – Jazz rap – Merenrap – Neo soul – Nu metal – Rap opera – Rap rock – Rapcore – Rap metal – Cumbia rap, bla! bla! bla!, Whew! What happened to just hip-hop pure and undiluted ? No doubt the industry is massive now, a thousand more rappers, a hundred more labels, bigger contracts and wider audience BUT! for the true hip hop believer, there are few songs released in today's hip hop world that can be considered a classic and a handful that can be compared to any of the legendary works of the 90s, now its just about the hype of the moment, fad music i would say, in the 90s we kept rap albums like trophy's, today we only have the latest release because previous albums fade with the trend of the time of its release.
This is the hip hop we know now, hip-hop artist are more concerned about their public image than the quality of their music, with the advent of new sound programmers,advanced music production methods and all the new technologies and awareness in the world, still the greatest rappers in history Tupac and Biggie are from the 90s, the era when creativity was the soul of composition, when gifted minds with genius IQ who could have been successful lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors if they had focused on academic education opted to follow their talent and became rap icons. that was the 90s.
Its time to bring back the 90s or we might as well see the end of a beautiful music called hip hop, its gradually eroding into different sub genre and fusion genre, soon it will evolve into something completely different, then we shall have no choice but to give it a new name to suit its new meaning. This is me Ese A.K.A Belushi! a mind educated and fashioned by hip hop culture from teenage sharing my opinion of this beautiful spoken poetry known as rap music, like we say back in the days, "word is bond".
