Apu Rambles: You’re All Boring, Stop Putting Out Music Please

by Apu

First of all, I have to give a big, big shout out to Prof for retweeting what I wrote about him and making my dick feel less small than it really is. More people read that article in 3 days than I originally thought would visit our site in a month.

Dear Diary,

I’m just sitting here eating my Little Bites brownies before I head off to the gym and I thought I’d try writing what I hope is a pretty quick little entry in Apu Rambles. I’m really fucking sick of people in hip hop (not necessarily just rappers but singers who are essentially a part of the culture and/or genre, but I guess I’ll say rappers from here on out because my fat fuck self is too lazy to write 5 syllables when I could just write 2) not having a personality in their music. That goes for people in both the mainstream and underground, however, I find that this problem does run more rampant in the underground. Of course, a lot of rappers in the mainstream have to rely on only personality because they can’t fucking rap (*cough* Future *cough* Young Thug *cough*), but strangely enough I come across more underground rappers than I do mainstream. Maybe it’s because my dad’s car’s speakers are dicked and my cheap-ass dad won’t do shit to fix it, leaving me to have to blast music through my phone’s speaker while putting myself at the same risk of death as people who text and drive.

So I don’t listen to the radio and I spend a little too much time on the internet, being the chick magnet that I am. Anyway, the point is that the whole personality thing bugs me.

I’m not gonna call any names out or anything in a negative way, because I don’t want to alienate any readers who may be fans of rappers I’m talking about (and basically make it so Dustin wasted $30 or so on the domain name). I just want to say, to me, technical skill isn’t everything. Some fans like to run around claiming that their next favorite underground rapper has the best flow, most complex rhymes, most mind-boggling metaphors…sure, I do enjoy them a lot. I mean, how couldn’t I? Eminem is my #1 favorite rapper and right now he’s probably one of the most technical rappers who has ever lived. But he still has a vibrant personality in his music. Just listen to the Bad Meets Evil song “All I Think About” if you think differently.

Honestly, if you don’t do something differently from the 30 other rappers I could find in the suggest videos column, then I’m not going to really care about how technical you are. Show me personality. Personality is fucking everything in life, even when it comes to shit like this. That’s why no matter how fucking terrible my submissions to this website are, I at least have a personality that isn’t like the typical millennial piece of shit who writes articles on the internet like “10 Reasons Why You Should Put Yourself Above Your Boyfriend” or “12 Ways I’m The Guy Every Girl Says She Wants But Doesn’t Date Because I’m So Clearly A Beta Male With No Confidence” or whatever the fuck else my generation spews out while expecting the older generations to actually respect us, so my shit is at least a little bit more enjoyable (at least, I would like to think. If not, well, at least I’m not getting paid for spreading my filth across the Internet). It’s especially important in an art form like hip hop, where it seems like everyone (including my shitty self) feels like they can do it.

So many underground rappers claim that they’re bringing the 90s back or whatever. REAL HIP HOP. The thing is though, I really don’t think they are. When I think the 90s, what I hear is guys like Wu-Tang, DMX, Onyx, or Heltah Skeltah with a rugged sound who rap with conviction. Busta Rhymes being catchy as shit with bouncy beats and a loud, fun as fuck voice that makes you want to yell along with him (“NEW YORK! JERSEY! PHILLY! B-MORE! D.C.! VIRGINIA! ATLANTA! EVERYBODY RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIISE!” is very fun. Yell it at the top of your lungs at some neighborhood kids, then again while you’re in a high-speed chase away from cops for causing a disturbance. You won’t regret it). Nas with a rich, soulful sound. Redman with the funky beats, slick delivery, and witty jokes that makes you grin when you listen. In other words, they put themselves into the music.

Since everybody is a unique snowflake who has value in their own special ways jfkdlajklfdjalkfjkl;dajl (sorry about that, I pressed my hand down on the keyboard as I ran up to vomit after typing that), they bring something in their music that nobody else has. You don’t get that with most underground rappers nowadays. You generally get rappers who have absolutely no originality at all… Look at all the Eminem, Lil Wayne, and Drake biters there are. Even The Weeknd is starting to have his style bitten by R&B singers. They’ve got no power or personality behind what they’re saying, they’re just adopting what someone else has done or they sound totally empty. It’s either that, or they rap over beats that they think are “old school boom bap” but are actually just painfully obviously programmed drums over opera samples that sound decentralized in the way that the sound comes out of the headphones. And the way they rap is just as bad. No vocal variety, no musicality, just flat rapping. I don’t know if it’s just me, but I can’t see a reason why anyone would want to listen to anything like these kinds of rappers. I can’t find anything that these guys add to my playlist that’s anything that I’ve either not already got or would even want.

Another thing, why the fuck have producers stopped using drums? Jesus Christ, these fucking idiots think that just because the Atlanta scene uses claps that everyone can, so they throw claps behind some classic rock samples and listen to it thinking the shit sounds good. It doesn’t. What made me really realize this is when I was listening to a new song by Ca$his (you forgot and/or never knew he existed, amright?), produced by Eminem, that was posted on a forum that I frequent. The melody and everything is pretty fucking nice, right? Shit sounds like it could really knock…but it doesn’t. There’s no drums, it’s just claps. For some reason Em skipped past basically all the drum options and (I can only assume) thought “ay bro this shit hard” in his drug-addled mind and gave it to Ca$his, probably because it sounded like most other shit that got plays. Comparing that to this newer song which sounds more like it was produced sometime around The Marshall Mathers LP 2, or later, made me understand how much the impact of the drums can transform a beat completely.

See the difference? It sounds tougher. It sounds meaner and compliments Ca$his’s (sort of outdated) gangsta attitude and style more than that weak-ass shit in the first song. It fucking hits harder, even though the melody of the older one sounds like the song should hit harder. Most importantly, the sound of the drum fits this beat more than that clap or whatever the fuck was used fit the first one. You know why? Because the shit wasn’t a dirty south beat. Claps don’t work on beats that aren’t dirty south. Look, hip hop producers from the East, West, and Midwest. We get that Atlanta ran shit for a long time in the mid 00s. That doesn’t mean you have to adopt their style. The producers from Atlanta know how to make the claps work, because they know how to make the surrounding music fit them. You fucking don’t. Get back to using actual drums because the shit sounds way stronger on the style of music that you’re producing. Or maybe it doesn’t and I’m just hearing things, in which case, leave a comment below and I’ll be sure to slit my wrist to take myself down a notch. Not too badly, just to let a little bit of blood flow out before I bandage myself.

But I don’t know, I think I like guys like DJ Premier so much still to this day because his drums are powerfu. I didn’t like Royce much on PRhyme (circling back to the personality thing, I thought that he just sounded like he was reading off his paper rather than rapping with conviction, but that’s just me…see? It all connects!), but holy shit was Premo’s production on that some of my favorite production work in a long time. Those drums on “Dat Sound Good” and “Wishin’” are to die for. So yeah. If you’re gonna make an East or West beat, just put a fucking snare, trash can lid, or fucking cowbell on it or some shit. Usually those drums will resonate more naturally with me than claps do. I’ve always believed that you know a song is good when you can feel the shit in your testicles, not when you have to think about why it’s a good song. It should work similarly when making the music. Don’t be a bitch. Make your music with your testicles, not with your brain. If the drums are stronger and you know it, don’t think too hard about what will fit in more, especially because most people aren’t as neurotic as I am and don’t worry about the drums that are being used.

Now don’t get me wrong or anything, this isn’t me yearning for a better time in hip hop. I’m not some old head crying about how music sucks nowadays and the only good that has ever happened in hip hop happened 20 years ago. That’s a harmful thought process. It holds the genre and culture back. If everything stayed the same, then hip hop would have died out a long time ago. It’s natural selection; in the changing music climate, the genre needs traits that keep it alive. Keeping the genre alive with whatever gets plays and keeps people thinking about it gives people more room to make different styles behind what’s currently hot. Plus, there was really shitty music back in the day too. I guess there’s just more now because everyone is running to set up a home studio and just putting out whatever the fuck they want without thinking about whether it is any good or not. Technicality is great and all, but when it comes to standing out in my ears, I just like some more soul and personality. Something that hits hard and causes a reaction.

Okay, so it’s time to go to the gym and listen to music that isn’t boring as shit, with hard drums, so that I can lift weights that make me feel like a monster… Even though they externally make me look like a lazy bitch, because for some reason I feel like a person of my size should probably be curling more than 35s.

Love, Apu.