A couple of years ago if someone would have told me that a sub-genre of hip hop that relied on repetitive, slightly hypnotic, electronic beats, and rappers mumbled lyrics that had no connection to the song title or chorus, and one verse didn’t relate to the other I’d have laughed you out of the building. The nineties was a time when hip hop was growing as it had been popularized just a decade earlier by the likes of Run DMC, Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, and others. By the time we were getting to the mid-nineties hip hop was at what some many people see as the halcyon days. Nas had just put out Illmatic, Busta Rhymes was putting crazy original music, and the Wu Tang Clan was on fire releasing multiple critically acclaimed albums such as Raekwon’s Only Built for Cuban Links and GZA’s Liquid Swords.
As we hit the 21st century music originating from the southern USA primarily Atlanta, New Orleans, and various cities in Texas, started to take prominence. Artists such as Outkast, Goodie Mob, Ludacris, T.I., Young Jeezy, Gucci Mane, Three 6 Mafia, UGK, Lil Jon and many others were at the forefront of bringing dirty south music to the mainstream. It was an exciting time. The dirty south sound was fresh and provided an alternative to the boom bap that was common in the 90s. As the movement grew so did the variety, but what caught my ear personally was a fresh sound that Jeezy, and T.I. were rapping to. These were the first instances of trap that I heard and I was blown away by how cinematic and big the music sounded. The distinct trap sound was pioneered by producers such as Zaytoven, DJ Toomp, Drummer Boy, Shawty Redd to mention a few. At the time it wasn’t as widespread as it is now, so it was something very unique. I listened to Jeezy’s Thug Motivation 101 every single day when it came out, and I to this day I still listen to some of the tracks from time to time.
Fast forward a few years later and a new breed of trap producers emerged and took the sub-genre to the stratosphere. The likes of Lex Luger and Mike Will Made It stand out as key figures, although there are now many others such London on Da Track, Sonny Digital, 808 Mafia, Hit Boy and many others. The music has become so popular that it even seeped into the dance music scene and is now a sub-genre of EDM as well. The EDM version is a bit more hype with a lot of crazy synth lines, more exaggerated drumrolls, etc since a lot of it is instrumental and/or contains minimal vocals. In short trap music is dominating the airwaves on the radio, the internet and in clubs. The funny thing is that trap was widely laughed at and ridiculed, and now it’s the most popular sub-genre of hip hop.
The problem with this is that the genre has become so popular that it’s now become saturated and over-crowded. A lot of the musicians who do this music are repeating the same concepts over beats that sound so similar and their flows are not original. And that is the biggest problem with the genre currently – lack of originality. There have been days when I’ve found myself listening to a selection of trap songs, I drift away only to come back and feel like I’ve been listening to the same song. Everyone is triple time rhyming in a similar style to Future and The Migos. There’s very little innovation in the game because everyone wants to get famous. Unfortunately this is watering down the hip hop industry. Erick Sermon said it best in his song Relentless “No creativity in the game no more, it’s the same old bore.”
I’m a music producer and I’m one of those people who complained about the situation for so long to as many people as I could. I reached a point where I refused to listen to modern trap music, and I refused to make trap beats, choosing to live in the 90s - the decade I discovered my love for hip hop. In its purest form hip hop culture is about each one of us expressing ourselves uniquely and being original, and that aspect seems to have been forgotten nower days. Everyone can copy everyone else and we justify it by saying we’re pulling inspiration or paying homage to our peers. It’s just laziness.
At the end of the day I think all we can do is accept that times have changed, society has changed, hip hop has evolved that’s a good thing. If we were stuck in the 90s and we were all making the same boom bap music we’d complain too. I decided to just accept the status quo and try to seek out artists worth listening to because although I tried to run from it I personally I love trap beats, and if you get the right artist, spitting the right message, over the right trap beat it’s fire. Artists such as Kendrick Lamar proved that you can use trap to convey a message, such as in his anti-drinking song Swimming Pools. Travi$ Scott showed me that you can rap about taboo subjects such as recreational drug use (which I’m against) in songs such as Antidote over beats that have that trap sound but still sound fresh and different enough from the rest. Big Sean, Drake, and Lil Wayne showed me that you can still be lyrical over trap beats in various songs they released over the years. Logic showed me you can still take trap influences and merge them with elements of east coast hip hop and come up with something fresh in the song Gang Related and various songs on his album Under Pressure.
In the bigger picture though, hip hop is thriving. There are so many talented artists out there who are making great music, some influenced by trap and others not at all. You just have to take time digging for good music. Don’t rely on the radio, MTV, and what’s trending. You’ll often find a lot of gems hidden in places like BandCamp, SoundCloud, and YouTube. You just have to dig. Thank goodness for artists such as Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Logic, Drake, Big K.R.I.T, Big Sean, and Lecrae. Even though most of these guys have at some point made music that’s in one way or another influenced by the most popular musical style of the day they have managed to do it in their own unique way, at an extremely high level, and they make music that sounds good and authentic…and that’s what’s important.
