- This makes more sense to me.
So I'm just going to go with it, right?
People are just choosing.
- what don't make dollars,
Don't make sense to the industry, my boy.
They don't sign on this unless they make money and streams.
And if it's good and it gets streams, they sign it.
(bouncy music)
- So there's this thing called Hot Takes.
Where we had our audience submit their hottest takes
that they had about rappers.
- Going to be brutal.
(upbeat music)
- Black rappers are better than other races.
(man laughs)
- Wow.
- I think it's a racist point of view to say that like that
their, that is often better.
There are so many dope rappers that are black.
There are so many dope rappers that are not black.
Like I don't think the color of your skin determines your
penmanship skills.
- So much of the narratives that built in bull burst,
hip hop is also what built and birthed black community and
black folk.
- If you black and you come from that,
and that's your struggle initial story.
And it connects with the history of being, you know,
I'm oppressed, then you will always have that advantage,
you know, from the, from the viewer standpoint, you know,
but I wouldn't say just because of like, you know,
being black makes you better.
- I like Lil Nas X.
- To, to not respect how he's marketed himself,
and now he's built himself up, you know,
using the tools at his disposal,
but he's just leveraged it in such a smart way.
- Like, I think that's so important to remember
that like hip hop was never about like,
just, are you the nicest with a pen?
It was just like, yo,
do you make things that people enjoy?
- No. I agree with everything being said, you know,
as another queer rapper,
who does a lot of gender bending and stuff like that,
I think little NAS X has opened up a lane for other
rappers alike that are,
can thrive now because of that in the mainstream.
Remember how Old Town Road was blasting
in the car when he was driving on?
- Oh, yeah.
- Having a couple of songs on SoundCloud
does not make you a rapper.
- I mean, I don't know, like,
I didn't consider myself a rapper until I started
making real money off that.
- I mean, for me, you're a rapper if you rap.
You can have no songs out anywhere.
If you rap you a rapper.
That's the way that I see it.
- Man, you're on the wrong side.
- Yeah, you're supposed to be up here.\
- Oh, my fault.
- If you just in your heart have a resonate with hip hop and
you've been writing your whole life and building that just
for yourself, then you're a rapper.
- Hey, but not everybody on SoundCloud did that.
- I agree.
You can have just a couple of songs on SoundCloud and
totally be a rapping ass rapper,
but you could also have a couple of songs and you put no
time into them.
And then, you know, it's not enough for me.
- I shouldn't have smoked. I got caught in mouth like a.
I can't even lie.
- Really though. You should have shared, but.
- It's okay to call women "bitches" in lyrics.
3, 2, 1 go.
- The reason I agree is because
I think you should be able to say whatever the you want
in your lyrics, you know what I'm saying?
Like, if you're okay to stand on what you say
then stand on it and say it, you know?
- It shouldn't be censored.
It's just like, again,
you asked the question, do we think it's okay?
They think it's okay.
- The consequences. If you say something that's messed up,
like if you got a white person, you know what I mean, like,
right. You know, then I gotta deal with the consequences.
You know what I mean? Like, and.
- Exactly.
You got to stand on what you say.
- I feel like the culture we in is like,
that's just like the type of people you'd be around.
Like girls would be like, yo, you dumb.
Like drop that. You know what I mean?
Like they be hyping each other up.
I don't think it's ever like in such a disrespectful way.
And like, I guess it's kinda like,
it's like a filler word kinda. It can't be, but like.
- Hey, we'll be a better writer than, you know, don't like,
don't, don't.
- Rely on words.
- I definitely don't rely on anything,
but it's just like, you know what I mean?
It helps get the point across.
- But I think in the larger scheme of things,
the majority of times where I'm hearing the word and rap and
hip hop is degrade, degrade women, you know,
you just go line after line and it's just like, yo,
these don't trust these hoes. Like, it's just like,
it's not like a, yeah, I'm uplifting my.
It's like, there's not a lot of that,
but I do think it's important. Or,
and I think it's important as creatives of any job era to
understand that our music exists beyond ourselves.
So our intention is not always going to be received the way
that we think it is. Like.
- I don't think any of us in here are being like,
yo I hate women. Or like, I'm trying to be bad to women.
Right. But I think that, that the question is like,
what does okay mean? What it comes down to for me is like,
just personally, I'm not gonna put that in my records.
I'm not gonna put that in my music, in my.
- it's dope.
- Whatever you wanna do is dope in my opinion,
for any artist, if you want to say some up,
I think we need crazy people to say crazy sometimes like,
you know, gas with the devil.
- I said one of the first. Okay.
- We can all agree that that's the whole,
that's one of the hardest songs of hip hop history. Right.
But I think we can also all agree that what he's talking
about is not right,
but I think the culture needs and needs the ability to let
people express themselves. So we have, you know,
like these big or else it would be too, I don't know.
It'd be too bland.
- It's hard to rap about something other than money,
sex or drugs.
Three, two, one, go.
- Rap about what you want to rap about.
Like, I think you're limited as an artist if you're going
to say like, those are the only things that I'm out there
and that would be, that would be stupid.
If you want to rap about that, that fine too.
- That's the only reason I'm over here.
Cause it's not hard.
It's definitely not hard,
but I think it's what people want to hear. You know?
And it's like,
if you want to get in this industry and make a successful
living off of it at a certain point, you got to say,
what the people want to hear?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, everyone wants money.
Everybody want to have say everybody does have sex.
A lot of people do drugs or they've been impacted by drugs.
So I think it's just inevitable that it comes out a lot.
You know what I mean? But yeah.
- I just completely disagree with the question, right?
Because I think like we've been talking about Lil NAS X,
Old Town Road is just, I don't even, you know,
it's just a Western song. And then like,
I think there's so many lanes right now that even if you're
looking for success memo, like peoples.
- How did those people come up though?
They didn't come up talking about all that spiritual woke.
J Cole didn't come out and talking about that, woke.
He can.
- Actually, J Cole might have.
- Yeah, J Cole Might have, yeah.
- Kanye definitely did.
And success is also such a spectrum of what the hell does
that mean?
Success, like the 1% of artists that are making millions
of dollars per feature or also completely eating and living
and paying all your bills that you need to.
- Right.
- And also got some money to vacay and pay for the album,
but you know.
- And the fans.
- And have fans and have a sustainable career. Right.
And that way you absolutely can be successful in having a
niche market. I mean, I'm doing it right now.
- Hip-Hop is misogynistic.
Three, two, one, go.
- Oh man.
- There are a ton of misogynistic artists,
misogynistic lyrics, misogynistic songs,
misogynistic practices.
I is a ton of work to be done in terms of like what that
narrative and how we influence people to, to,
to think and not to think.
But I can't say that the whole culture is misogyny. I mean,
we're all Hip-Hop, all of us here, right?
I'm not a misogynist.
- So I, whenever I hear like a question about Hip-Hop,
I always think about what Mos Def said in 99,
on black on both sides. Right?
He said, yo,
people ask me "Mos, how's hip hop doing?",
like it's a giant living up in the mountain.
Like it's some creature and he's like hip hop is the people.
You know?
I do think that it's a problematic question though,
because why are you singling out hip hop for that? You know,
I think the world is misogynistic.
I think that country music is misogynistic.
- Absoloutely.
When do we start making the choices,
individuals to look for that to seek out,
to not even just be complicit and oh, well,
that's just how it is.
We also have to make that extra effort to bring them around.
We as gatekeepers,
our own communities where our own genre is and our own,
you know, cities, we have to be the ones to move forward.
And until we do, then.
- I don't know, like,
I've always thought that whole like stepping an extra way
to, to go do certain things like, like me,
like going to get a woman on my project because I just want
to get a woman on my project.
Cause it's disingenuine, you know,
like if you make hard,
there's always going to be people that are going to with it.
And that's the bottom line.
- I agree with it. And I disagree with it.
I agree with it in that that's the hip hop I love, you know,
M said growing up, it didn't matter what color you was.
If you could spit, then you could spit that's it.
That's what it was. Right.
And right now,
so much of what people see from hip hop is marketing.
The person who pops up at the open mic and is super nice.
And the people in the community respected,
but they never get that extra little push.
- But that's because that artist,
that makes the decision to go to the open mics,
is not pushing themselves to the point to get to them.
- Yeah, but it's not an even playing field from the jump,
you know.
- It is.
- It's not though because systematically women and
queer folk and people of color, you know,
they are on different levels in terms of resources,
even unconsciously, the same folks, you know,
that are at the open mic and how they're pushing themselves,
how they're pushing themselves,
how to push themselves each time they push themselves.
There are other people that kind of validate them or allow
them in higher, higher up.
And they see this, you know, this dope, a white rapper.
And then they see this like, you know,
young women of color rapper. And then it's just like,
you're like, well, this is what I'm more familiar with.
This makes more sense to me.
So I'm just going to go with it. Right?
People are just joking.
- What don't make dollars don't make sense to the industry,
my boy, they don't sign unless they make money and streams.
And if it's good and it gets streams, they signing it.
Trust me.
- Yeah, I mean, sure.
If it makes money it makes streams.
- Look at Little NAS X, he's gay,
he's top of the world right now.
- Yeah.
But that's one gay rapper in a world of a hundred straight
rappers or more, thousands.
- Then get out there and do it, my boy.
- He can do it straight up.
- I always wanted to be a rapper.
- 3, 2, 1 Go.
- I grew up in a neighborhood in a time where it was the
aftermath of the war on drugs.
So I lost my father to gun violence when I was four.
And you know, he was shot 22 times.
I lost a lot of friends and relatives.
And then when I heard 50 cent "Get Rich or Die Trying" the
album, it was like, he's telling my story.
I feel, you know, he,
he carried me through a time where it was a war going on in
the hood. And I was like, man,
I feel like I want to do what he's doing and offer that same
hope to people in my community is share my story. You know?
So yeah. I knew once I was like 11, 12,
that I wanted to rap, you know?
- Yeah.
- So the first time I ever wrote rhymes,
I was five years old.
I saw Run DMC as the musical guests on all that.
I busted out my composition notebook and I was like,
that was a sick song.
I gotta, I gotta write all the lyrics.
I had the beat in my head.
I wrote lyrics from my own memory. It was probably whack as.
I was like five years old,
but I showed it to my uncle the next day.
And I was like, yo, check this out.
I wrote this like Run DMC remix. And he was like,
this is fire. You've got to keep this up.
And I say, from that moment, that was like,
this is what I need to do. I need people to hear my lyrics.
I take pride in my penmanship and I just want everybody to
appreciate the lyrics.
- For me, I feel like it was after high school,
but like I was free styling in high school and stuff.
And like, the homies was like, yo,
you kind of fire with the freestyle. And,
but like I never took it serious.
And I was like, nah, school is nodded at a certain point.
I was like, yeah, rap music as far as.
- I don't know. I started up in school towards the end.
I wasn't feeling that, you know,
and I just started grinding with the rap. You know,
I never had no job. Luckily I right away.
Like I, my first started taking off.
So I just kinda like that's when I wanted to be a rapper,
you know, like as once I started seeing,
like I dropped my first bullshit song
and I just started going crazy.
And then we just repeat and repeat and repeat.
And that's when I want to be a rapper.
- I definitely not always wanted to be a rapper.
- Actually,
Rico Pabon is a Puerto Rican rapper from New York.
Very underground.
Was the first time that I saw like a
contemporary Latino rapper that was doing something.
And I think that's when I first started to think that like,
oh, I guess Latinos, you know,
they kind of looked like me can be in rap.
- So I grew up in Delaware, you know what I'm saying?
Like as a Chinese kid in like, you know, suburban Delaware,
there weren't a lot of those kinds of voices from the
margins.
It was hip hop that was giving me that guidebook,
giving me those pathways through.
- Facts.
- So because of that, I've always wanted to be a rapper.
And the KRS one said, right, I am hip hop.
I, it's not something I do.
It's not something that I try to do is just who I am.
And that's where it comes from. For me.
- Rap is damaging to young people.
3, 2, 1 go.
- I think it can be because you can put some like,
really young kids on to like what we was just talking about
money, sex, drugs.
And like, that's typically for older people,
I would say like, you know, once you graduate high school,
it's like more common to be around that stuff. But like, no,
I mean, I think it can just like, I dunno,
like it can be damaging, you know what I mean?
Like.
- Movies, music, video games,
like to put blame on all that stuff for influencing people
like their actions.
I dunno to listen to something and then act on it and then
blame that for what you did. That's just a cop out.
You know? So.
- I would say because if a mind is not fully developed and
they're exposed to a certain kind of rap too early,
then it can distort like their perspective on things.
If the parent isn't there to introduce it to them.
So for my son, I'm not going to play, you know,
an Eminem album to him or whatever,
or a Tee Grizzly project. Now, when he's older,
I'll lay the foundational principles down about okay,
here's life and here's what this means.
And I would say your music should evolve. Right?
So for me,
if I grew up on a corner when I was 13 and now I'm traveling
to LA doing a show,
I should talk about that and not just say, yeah,
I'm still on the block, robbing people because I'm lying.
You know what I mean?
Like people want to grow with their artists and the people
they look up to like what we see Jay Z doing with 4:44 like.
- Talking about manhood, talking about success.
- And acknowledging his mistakes and also, you know,
walking people through that process. That's important,
you know?
- Ah, it sounds so weird.
Cause I'm going,
it's like going against my argument about the thing,
but it's really how I feel though. Like I don't,
I don't with how so many people like are promoting all this
drug use and and pills. You know what I'm saying?
One of my brothers, OD'd like a month ago, you feel me,
if you're going to talk about it, you also need to let know,
especially if your audience is younger people coming up,
I think you should have a responsibility to say like,
you know,
at least let them know what the they're getting into.
You know, if I'm, if I'm not promoting that,
they're going to go to someone who is, you know,
if just the same way to say, like tell him,
I can tell people as much as I want, don't pop perks.
Don't do pills for the people who really want to do that.
are going to go.
They're not going to want to hear me, you know,
they're going to want to hear people who are talking about
that.
So I guess, I don't think a just as me saying,
having a song can really make a change his life around,
you know, like obviously.
- Dang, value yourself, G.
I feel like, I mean, thinking about yourself,
you're in music because music also means something to you,
right?
It's resonate and build so much value when you build
yourself up.
Like yeah, maybe not one song, but it's an entry point.
It's a door that opened up and, you know,
to kind of tie back into conversation.
I think even beyond being artists and creators,
we have responsibility as men,
as the members of the community, right?
To be thoughtful with our actions. Right?
Considerate with our words. And then especially as creators,
just to know that our exists beyond us for the positive and
a negative.
And to just take that in stride to understand there's only
(cheerful music)
consequence from our actions. Good and bad.
- And that's officially a wrap.
(males clapping)
(upbeat music)