After the Mourning…
It’s not fun for me to write this. Some of what I’m going to say may piss some people off. Maybe I’m writing this more to myself than for others.
Fans and lovers of music…trust me I understand. Believe me, from the bottom of my heart, it’s not easy for me to say this and admit it to myself either; but right now, I think it’s clear…
We have to move on.
We have experienced a lot of loss of musicians and entertainers who have paved the way in the past few years.
James Brown. Michael Jackson. Teddy Pendergrass. Issac Hayes. J Dilla. Roc Raida. DJ AM. Big Pun. Jam Master Jay. I’m sure there are more I’m missing.
Whoever they are, say a prayer in the air for them.
This is the first solid decade where the Hip Hop generation has experienced loss of pioneers. It’s been happening in Soul, R&B, and Jazz music. Our parent’s generation is seeing their peers fall one after another. But for our generation, we are literally watching our culture disappear in physical form.
But like all times of someone passing there is a point where we must grieve and then move on.
There’s a large artistic and cultural void a lot of people have been witnessing lately. Radio and television, the usual filters, have been watering down content. The Internet is so massive it’s hard to wade through it all. More people have been expressing their displeasure. And when one of the musicians we loved dies, it makes the whole situation feel worse. We cling on to their material as hard as possible so that they don’t slip away.
I was at an event this past weekend celebrating the birth-date of my favorite Hip Hop producer: J Dilla.
Everything they played I already knew, and had probably known word for word, sound for sound, for years now. But it all felt like we wished he would come back, 4 years later. But he won’t. The songs weren’t new. They weren’t going to play me a song or beat I hadn’t heard. They weren’t really going to tell me a story that was new. I had fully delved into Dilla’s stories and history ever since his passing 4 years ago. The day he passed was a hard blow to my mind. About 10 years of my love of Hip Hop was gone.
I remember first semester of 9th grade. My mother picked me up from a friends house. I was reclining in the passenger seat as we were on the way home. Then a song came on the radio. Halfway into the first verse, I put my chair back upright, and turned it up. It was beautiful. It was the beat that Hip Hop producers aspired to make. It was everything you wanted in a song. Runnin by The Pharcyde. Soon after that I knew the name: Jay Dee, soon to be J Dilla. Whenever I heard that crisp snare, funky bass-line, and sort of off beat timing, I knew who it was.
After he passed all kinds of producers were using his drum sounds and his Donuts chopping style. Recreating his beats. But they would never be able to recreate Dilla. Everyone was trying to rhyme over his un-used beats. Even now mixtapes are being made using beats he created 15 years ago.
After Tupac and Biggie died there were a bunch of artists trying to sound like one of them. Sampling them. Using their lines. Even today on Twitter someone said they were in a debate over who was better, Biggie or ‘Pac. That debate has raged for nearly 14 years since their deaths, and no one can give a compelling enough answer for one over the other. It’s all preference. Let the debate go. And stop using their un-used verses!
Every artist draws from another, but their greatness is defined by their ability to be unique and the context of the time they were living in. We have to let them rest. They served their purpose. Lets draw inspiration from them, not just keep their old things around. They aren’t coming back. We have to move on.
