The Meek Mill – Drake beef reignited the debate over the use of ghostwriters and Ras Kass reopened the discussion of what “real rap” is on a recent episode of Unique Access Ent.’s Myths Exposed.
The West Coast rapper calls out those who walk around claiming they are the greatest MCs when they don’t do their own work. He says the same applies to producers who really work in teams, but take all the credit for themselves.
“To blatantly go out and have you and your homie and he’s writing half of your rap and then you come out and say, ‘I’m the hottest dude. I spit the hottest bars, I’m the best rapper,’ it’s just insulting to the people that sit there and work every day,” Ras Kass says. “If you’re in McDonalds, I don’t expect to see Ronald [McDonald] there, on the fries, making my soda and taking my money. I understand that he’s a brand. It’s a figurehead, a puppet. So if you’re a puppet rapper, just be a puppet rapper, but don’t insult the hard work that we have to do by claiming that you do the same thing.”
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While he’s hesitant to call out names, the “Nature of the Threat” rapper gives Diddy, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre a pass because they were open about getting help with their raps and didn’t go around boasting about their lyricism.
Ras Kass applauds Scarface for his thought-provoking words and says that he wishes more rappers would take notes from the Houston legend.
“I hear the conviction, I hear the conflict,” he says. “He’s conflicted sometimes in his music, ‘I’ve never seen a man cry/ ‘Til I’ve seen a man die.’ You meet him, you do your background research and you understand the kind of person he is.”
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He is extra critical of the West Coast scene that made its name off gangster music. He explains how he thought it was implied, an unwritten rule that an artist would only rap about his reality, but as he got deeper in the game, he was disappointed that was not the case.
“A lot of them were total cowards,” he says of the Left Coast rappers he’s come into contact with. “You hang with the bodyguard. You are with the police. You saying all this tough shit, then little kids are out here in the streets are out here emulating the shit you put on video in a closed set. You’re getting your make-up on and then they’re out here getting murked out in the streets and there’s no accountability.”
Ras Kass says he wishes there was a greater sense of responsibility and is “disgusted” by the music industry that has allowed such appropriation to happen.
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“They’re leading people into ruin and corporate American enjoys that,” he says. “I call it ghetto porn and a lot of them sponsor ghetto pornography. ‘Oh nigga in the hood.’ It’s nigger music, it’s coony, corny, monkey music and the gatekeepers have promoted it, to completely fuck up the heads of the youth.”
Watch the complete episode of Ras Kass discussing real rap above.
