Today marks my tenth month as HipHopDX’s Senior Features Writer. And, it’s been one helluva year so far. For the over 100 editorials, interviews and reviews written within the amount of time, I’ve been vehemently praised and hated equally. Some call it being inconsistent, I call it success. One should never enter this business hoping to please everyone. Trust me, it’s literally impossible. Just yesterday, DX freelancer Nadine Graham provided a nuanced answer to the age-old question of whether or not Southern Rap ruined Hip Hop. The reception was literally split down the middle. Just as many readers applauded Graham for tackling such a touchy subject head as they loathed the discussion itself. Watching the hundreds of opinions on this one issue was fascinating to watch. That’s honestly become the best part of the job for me. Meanwhile, Complex managed to break the Internet through Justin Charity’s interestingWhy Did Everyone Claim to Enjoy Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly?’ Many were angry that anyone would dare disrespect what many consider the album of the year. Despite wholesomely disagreeing with Charity’s argument, it’s quite refreshing seeing someone have balls enough to go against the grain. This is what makes modern rap journalism so fascinating: No opinion or voice is left behind. Ironically, everyone from Top Dawg Entertainment President Punch to Talib Kweli himself found themselves turned off by the article. Complex actually gave To Pimp A Butterfly almost a perfect score of 4.5 /5 by the way. So are online publications supposed to give an outlet to all thoughts and feelings toward a particular album or serve as glorified publicists?
This isn’t any different than a piece I wrote some months ago entitled Dr. Dre, Eminem & A Few Extremely Uncomfortable Moments On “Compton.” Having open dialogue about misogyny and violence against women in context to a few moments on Compton: A Soundtrack By Dr. Dre angered stans. Also, I gave the album a 4.5. The reason? I loved the album that much. But, make a few honest observations and one automatically becomes a hater. Matter of fact, one commenter had the audacity to promote violence against women. In his world, women need to get beat. Now I don’t agree with that but, it’s his (or her possibly?) opinion for the world to see for better or worse. General conscious in the Internet age is always related to the most vocal. Makes sense that an album like To Pimp A Butterfly has a 4.0 user score on DX as it stands as the best rated rap album in Metacritic history. While many online publications have a clear winner in K.Dot’s sophomore album, readers of this site feel Lupe Fiasco’s Tetsuo & Youthis a better albumas it enjoys a 4.7. The same could be said for Yelawolf’s Love Storyor Tech N9ne’sSpecial Effectswhich both enjoy a 4.5 user score. Calling albums classics become difficult and it’s not because of what the general conscious are with writers or actual quality the project presents. Hell, my review of Fetty Wap’s debut was met with criticism despite having a user score of 1.3. This means that a selected group of people were vocal about their love of that album and that’s fine. Simply put, there isn’t a monopoly over what’s considered good or bad anymore.
Take your top five best albums of all time and someone within the electronic walls of the Internet hates it. Regardless of how iconic Illmatic has become since being released over 20 years ago, not everyone was on board with the album. Los Angeles Times writer Heidi Siegmund said the album The Source gave five mics to was hampered by “tired attitudes and posturing” before calling it “an obvious attempt to wrestle Hip Hop away from the West.” Of course, this is coming at a time where turn-arounds for music reviews were a lot longer; sometimes stretched to almost a month. Therefore, the argument of sites not digesting music properly becomes almost questionable. Most importantly, there were a lot less published writers than there are now.
The wonderful thing about the Internet’s consumption of music is that mainstream major labels nor major outlets aren’t in complete control of music taste as people might suggest. It’s the reason why Run The Jewels 2could be considered critically the best album of 2014 along with Cocaine Pinata and PRhyme yet found themselves outsold by everything from Iggy Azalea’s debut to Rick Ross’ Mastermind. Who cares right? Their individual fan bases carry them past that anyway. Then again, there are rare moments where the stars align as critics and consumers agree. Case in point: J. Cole’s 2014 Forest Hill Drive. But wait, acclaimed journalist and New York Times author of The Rap Year Book Shea Serrano has been quite vocal about his dislike for Jermaine. Though Drake may find himself rap’s current commercial king, he’s actually never been a surefire critical darling. Drizzy’s only album on Metacritic to make it over the 80 percent barrier was his breakout So Far Gone project. So who’s in control, journalists or fans? Who knows? What’s understood is that regardless of whether or not an album is a classic, someone is always going to find something to love or hate about it. Ladies and gentlemen, this is called perspective.
