Pete Rock has offered his thoughts on the current state of Hip Hop culture, emphasizing how he believes the art form has been consumed by greed.
On Wednesday (January 3), the pioneering producer shared an interview clip of Erick Sermon talking about how the genre has become unrecognizable from where it started off and that it is “stuck in one place.”
“They should change the music to WTF [facepalm emoji] tryna create a narrative that aint working,” the 53-year-old New Yorker captioned his Instagram post. “Pile driving the culture straight in the ground. We created real history! idk what da hell they creating today but it damn sure aint history or hip hop thats a fact.”
He continued: “We lost our integrity chasing the money. The bag as they say has become the problem and the focus point in the culture. Makes it corny when yall make it about money smh [corn emoji] Everyone extra sensitive about opinions smh. Soon as you have an opinion you’re a hater automatically lol. Clown shit [clown emoji] we all out here working to make better music. Why dont try and do the same thing.”
The above clip is from an interview Erick Sermon did with Say Word! Podcast back in mid-November. During the chat, he expressed his qualms about modern Hip Hop, dismissing today’s dominant trends as being uncharacteristic of the craft he helped to pioneer.
The EPMD co-founder didn’t hold back when he was asked his thoughts on the genre as it stands today, making it clear that he doesn’t recognize it for what it’s branded as.
“I just think that Hip Hop is just not Hip Hop,” he began. “I just think that they should change the name. No disrespect, but that’s not what that is […] Hip Hop can evolve, but this is not evolving.
“Evolving is Melle Mel to Rakim stage to the whole nine, to Wu-Tang [Clan] to Murder Inc., DMX — that’s evolving. Y’know, Cam’ron. Y’know, Dipset — that’s evolving.”
After shouting out several other artists such as Ludacris, Migos and Soulja Boy for their originality, he added: “Music is in somewhat of a bind because it’s stuck in one place.”
Says the guy suing everyone. There is a lane for 90’s boom bap hip-hop. It’s my favorite shit. I don’t like most new rap/hip-hop at all. That being said dude sounds old and bitter. Nas is making albums with new producers and getting paid. Pete Rick makes dope beats. So does Preem and countless other pioneers. The art doesn’t need you. You’re fading into irrelevance. Peoples grandkids have never heard of you. It’s up to YOU to change that. Make dope beats for the newer generation, instead of being some judgy, old weirdo. Showbiz is better than you are BTW. Madlib shots on both. Dudes just mad that Alchemist gets more love and recognition than he does, which is actually sad. He could be making beats for all these dudes.
Has nothing to do with it. Those guys back then were chasing money. It’s no different from other genres. At some point, you run out of innovations, and the corporations took over with what used to be a grass roots effort. There are only so many more ways we can hear origin stories of rappers. We’ve heard it all, and for a genre that rose to prominence on the back of sampling real musicians, you were always going to run into a brick wall at some point with there being a finite amount of truly great material to pull from in the past. Did anyone say what happened to rock and roll happened because of money? No, because it was no truer for them than it was for hip hop. Everything just runs its course.
You sound like a fucking fraud a fucking idiot and stupid ass simp
White supremacy killing hip hop
White people need to create their own music culture styles dances
Leave us alone yalls agrevating
It’s the blacks who are spoiling this culture. Look at HH in Europe and then judge.
another cock sucker. fuck all you heathens – you know nothing. go back to your fucking caves. should have never civilized you with beats. fuck europe
We’re not killing it we created it for our culture of self expression. You can’t blame Europe when nothing black from outside the states gets a look in except Ed Shereen take a peek at some uk underground the corporations blackball the talent out of a valid fear
The problem is that it’s a singles driven, streaming world that we live in. Then when a album does come out there’s more features on it then a Hollywood movie. Half these artists can’t hold down a complete album because after 16 bars that’s it, they can’t even do a three minute song by themselves. Then there is always the sample clearance delay excuse. It’s a 😱 state of Hip Hop. Carry on!!!
Its true. All that money and they are still bums on the mic.
Well there’s the money. Plus some of this generation are a bunch of weirdos. Some of these newer “rappers” are straight goofy. It shows in their music.
Since music doesn’t pay no one likes a broke dusty fan with no talent and a lot of opinion about people age and talent. what you idiots fail to recognize is we’re all rich now since we had to find other sht to do since 2005. We can afford to talk. you can’t. straight facts. pete rock has plenty of cash on the side to say whatever he likes he can sell out a DJ gig any city in 15 seconds
There have always been people that were only in it for the money, not the love of the art. That was true 30 years ago just as it is today. The issue is, it’s harder these days to sift through the bullshit to find the art that is made for the sake of the art or even quality “give me the bag” music because you no longer need to put up money to make an album, you can make it on a laptop…. so the barrier to entry is completely gone. Add to that, us old farts have likely matured a bit since the 90’s, so I really don’t want to hear about shooting up mother fuckers and fucking every bitch under the sun, and a lot of 90’s artists don’t know anything else to rhyme about. With the exception of a few guys like Nas or underground guys like Aesop Rock, a lot of the 90’s / early 2000’s artists switched lanes because they ran out of shit to say…
Pete has a valid point. Artistic value is actually measured by material gains. Every hour of the day some guy you never heard of has these numbers up but the music socks. You didn’t pay attention to the music at all. Hip Hop is now this fake corporate show which everyone from outside the culture dictates