1990s and now

As a disclaimer, I do not offer any private art lessons despite my phenomenal skills being made apparent by this picture. Now when I was given the opportunity to parody an element of hip-hop, a flurry of ideas came into my mind. There were a number of different routes I could have taken here, but I feel this is the most appropriate one given the theme of the blog. On the left you will notice that we have an unaltered Tupac album taken straight from when it debuted in the 1990's. As you will notice, I have taken the liberty and added a few items on the right to make this album more relevant and distinguishable for kids today. After all, we don't seem to hear about anything else other than the standard influx of incoherent ramblings about women, drugs, money, swagger, more drugs, sex, violence, partying, more money, more women, and finally a monologue on how successful the artist is.

My point here is very simple: The mainstream rap of the 1990's isn't even close to identifiable with the mainstream rap of today. Please not that I am in no way saying that this is how Tupac would look if he were still alive today; what I am merely pointing out is that you will be more familiar and likely to hear something from the album on the right, than something as original and innovative as the album on the left. I could have easily linked an album that looks shockingly similar to the one I created, but for the sake of recreation I made my own that basically comes out and says, "This is exactly what you will be listening to today, sir".

Really the problem I have is with the lack of creativity with the songs I hear on the radio. You can argue all you want with me that if the songs were truly as bad as I make them out to be, then the artists wouldn't be making any money. Sadly, commercial music has taken its toll on the masses and sooner or later people will find themselves listening to artists reading Dr. Seuss behind enhanced elevator music and eat the newly released song up like the drone they are.

A talented producer is all that is needed to be famous today, and in a sense anyone can do what these new-age mainstream artists are doing; all you need to be able to do is establish a "cool" image, keep up with the beat that your producer has laid out for you, and make sure you sound as intolerable as possible to any person who cares about meaning behind their music.