What Does It Mean For Rap to Have “Substance”?
Hip-hop is constantly mired in discussions about importance, significance, and, yes, substance. If you come up for air, you’ll feel it all around you.
Every niche within hip-hop has its own definition of “substance,” and debates over its exact meaning crop up at least a handful of times every year. But it’s become an even more loaded word on the rap internet over the course of the last few weeks. During a recent appearance on music journalist Jeff Weiss’ The Truth Hurts podcast, a conversation with the Vallejo, California rapper LaRussell took a turn when he opened up about how his relationship with the music of Lil Wayne has changed as he’s gotten older. “I’ve seen the negative that he contributed to the community,” LaRussell said. “And I have to look, like, ‘Man, what are the songs where he really talked about something and gave?’”
The internet being the internet, this clip circulated quickly, stripped of its initial context (Weiss later shared a longer clip that featured LaRussell praising Wayne as an influence). Waves of discourse ensued. California rapper Reason chimed in to remind listeners of what Wayne contributed to the culture and reaffirm that “everybody don’t gotta be a [conscious] artist. It’s art.” Georgia’s Cyhi the Prynce bemoaned a purported lack of rappers from the streets and the music ceding ground to “a bunch of straight A students who dropped out of college,” who are good with words but have no life experiences. Through all this discussion, it’s become even clearer there’s no consensus on what substantive rap sounds like. Should it be thoughtful and morose? Can a street rapper telling stories about drug-dealing have substance? Do you have to rap about expanding your third eye or railing against the powers that be? Contrary to popular belief, there’s no right or wrong way to make rap with substance. Having a point of view you convey with conviction and creativity is all you need.
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