Aug 4, 2020

Great piece by Briana Younger.

How much of a loser do you have to be to use the term "mumble rap" still lol

https://www.npr.org/2020/08/03/897745376/the-south-is-raps-past-present-and-future


"A microaggressive term like "mumble rap," which has been applied so broadly it barely means anything at this point, or the cliche phrase "real hip-hop" are all ways of discrediting the artistic merits of some styles in order to prop up others. It's no secret they are most often deployed against rappers from the South. And the thrust of the intra-cultural conversations still moves the same — from Source Award resentment, to the way No Limit and Cash Money are cherry-picked as quintessential hip-hop success stories only after their empires were built (but Hypnotize Minds is still somehow excluded), to the way Trina (and all Southern rap women this side of Missy Elliott) remain under-acknowledged, to the way Soulja Boy was made a punchline as if he didn't revolutionize the way the genre could exist on the Internet, to the way Gucci Mane was shrugged off for years before a rebrand effectively rewrote history, to the way Rae Sremmurd was criticized for daring to have a good time and make music accordingly (Slim Jxmmi's query of "why we gotta rap about 'momma couldn't pay the bills,' and s***?" still needs an answer) to the initial reduction of Young Thug into "post-language/post-lyrical" sounds rather than an advancement of the tradition. The message is clear: Rap that doesn't take into account bicoastal sensibilities is not rap worth taking seriously or possibly not rap at all. That is, until it reaches a fever pitch, and the conversation becomes moot, the backhanded dismissals just another distant memory. When those who steer the larger cultural discourse let the pattern repeat without confronting the structures it upholds, we are tricked into buying the illusion of inadequacy; time has been the greatest source of redemption and truth."

 

Aug 4, 2020

Exactly. Like you could classify 50 cent as "mumble rap" because he slurs his words from being shot in the face.

It's definitley got racist undertones to it cuz it's mostly used to describe southern black rappers who use regional slang and talk with a regional accent that's viewed to be unintelligent by mainstream America.

 

Aug 5, 2020

I think it’s kinda a rubber band effect, where the more old heads call new music trash the more younger fans are gonna call more traditional rap dusty