Your Favorite Rapper's Favorite Rapper

Now as some of you may or may not know, I am working for a local entertainment company. The company specializes in artist development and music consultation. Basically, we develop raw, unsigned talent into packaged, "sign"-able talent.

When clients sign up with us, we like to have a consultation scheduled with them ASAP to get all the music they have made so far, and to see where their head/heads is/are at in terms of work ethic and commitment to success.

Now one of the guys I work with, we'll call him Jared, who is also one of the lead consultants, likes to ask clients a series of general questions he uses to gauge their commitment to music/work ethic. One of the first questions he likes to ask is "Who is your favorite rapper?" (Sidenote: Our clients are primarily hip hop acts.) Every client is quick to name rappers that they think are hot or that they want to be like. The names are pretty standard as well (Jay, Weezy, Outkast, T.I., Diddy believe it or not, Nas, to name a few that we hear). Jared likes to then follow up with, "Okay. Give me a verse from one of 's songs." What is surprising, and deeply disturbing at the same time, is that 95% of the clients that come in CANNOT recite a SINGLE verse of their favorite rapper's music. One that deeply hurt me, was when one of our clients, who is in a rap group from Memphis, who also claims that he's from Cali (who says they're from "Cali"? Can I get a city? A county? Cali is BIG, you bobblehead ninja!) was asked to recite the first verse from NWA's classic record "F#@k tha Police". This BUSTER couldn't even START the song!

What's even crazier to me, is that Jared used to ask the clients to recite verses from old school legends like Rakim, Run D.M.C., or KRS One, but he had to ask about recent artists because NOBODY knew any of their songs. So he decided to start asking people to give lines of their favorite rappers'. You would think this would increase the percentage of correct answers.....NOPE.

Not knowing the music of the people that STARTED hip hop is disturbing enough, but to not knowing the music of the person you say you're trying to emulate is more than just disturbing, that's, well, RETARDED (no offense to actual retarded individuals). Quite frankly, my ninja, you STOOPID. How can anyone say they want to be something, and not be able to cite the work of someone who is successful doing what YOU want to do? Without that foundation, you're destined to fail.

Examples of client stoopidity:

One client claimed to be the first really lyrical group from the South. Hello? Anybody home? Outkast?

Another client had started his verse with the hook from Run DMC's song "King of Rock" (I'm the king of rock, there is none higher/sucker mc's should call me sire). When asked where he got the verse from, he said....drumroll please.....you guessed it....T.I.!

Another client (R&B artist) came in and sang a "remake" or rather he just re-worded it, of the 70's soul group The Crusaders' song "Street Life", and when asked whose song he had just sung, he "couldn't recall."

Now maybe, this is why Nas said hip hop is dead. A lot of these new rap artists don't really appreciate the music or respect the craft. Just think, when we're all old and our brand of hip hop is considered old school, whose songs will we be playing when we're sunday driving? Jeezy? Or Common? Joc? Or Jay?

There is a problem with today's music, and I applaud Jared for being on the front lines and doing the best he can to fix it. I'm gonna do what I can too. I haven't bought an actual cd in a while. I'm gonna buy Common.