{"id":225,"date":"2012-03-09T15:29:15","date_gmt":"2012-03-09T20:29:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/?p=225"},"modified":"2014-01-13T19:04:51","modified_gmt":"2014-01-14T00:04:51","slug":"what-if-biggie-were-still-in-the-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/2012\/03\/09\/what-if-biggie-were-still-in-the-game\/","title":{"rendered":"What if Biggie were still in the game?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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15 years to the day since Notorious BIG was killed (and apropos of my post last night), this is the question Nesnga Burton asks in today’s The Root<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/span>. \u00a0I think it’s a question lots of hip hop fans have asked at some point–and the same could certainly be extended to 2Pac. \u00a0The two MCs had very different styles, but their impact on the genre was profound.<\/p>\n

So this article certainly asks an important and timely question, but I don’t think Burton’s answers make much sense. \u00a0She says that if Biggie were around, rappers wouldn’t get away with using Auto-Tune or making the same song over and over. \u00a0I’m not sure how you’d support an argument like that, but it’s unlikely that Biggie alone would’ve single-handedly saved rap from redundancy or technological experimentation done badly. \u00a0She goes on to assert that “Today’s rappers could learn a lot from Biggie, like increasing their vocabulary, painting pictures through words, [and] having complex lyrics that actually make sense…” \u00a0OK, now I am wondering if the author is actually a fan of rap music. \u00a0Rappers like Nas, Andre 3000, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, and Eminem could teach courses on word play. \u00a0I’m not sure what “painting pictures through words” is supposed to mean, but I am pretty sure most (all?) rappers do that.<\/p>\n

And the last bit I will comment on is this piece of speculation: \u00a0“I don’t know if Jay-Z would be the reigning King of Hip-Hop…” \u00a0I know this has become the new orthodoxy, but Jay-Z is not the reigning king of hip hop. \u00a0No disrespect intended—<\/em>I loved Decoded<\/em>–but I can think of more innovative and\/or influential rappers. \u00a0See my list in the previous paragraph for examples.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

          15 years to the day since Notorious BIG was killed (and apropos of my post last night), this is the question Nesnga Burton asks in today’s The Root. \u00a0I think it’s a question lots of hip hop fans have asked at some point–and the same could certainly be extended to … Continue reading What if Biggie were still in the game?<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1656,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-225","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1656"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/enielson\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}