There has been a shift in hip hop music, igniting after Lil’ Wayne popularized the slowed-down slash auto-tuned version of rhyming almost a decade-and-a-half ago.
His daringness to differentiate himself alongside his desire to be etched into hip hop history, fueled Lil’ Wayne to structure hip hop songs in a way that hadn’t been done before back then. After transitioning his flow in 2008 to an auto-tuned melodic hip hop tone, those coming up behind Lil’ Wayne have utilized elements of his music formula in their own music creation.
Lil’ Wayne’s auto-tuned singing-rap style that he originated has been used as a blueprint by many successful artists including Drake, Nicki Minaj, Future, Roddy Ricch and Lil’ Baby. And that’s only scratching the surface. As the old adage goes “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it,” however what happens if repetition is slowly causing the breakage? At least that’s Cardi B’s perspective on the current state of hip hop.
During the “Bodak Yellow” rapper’s latest Instagram Live she gave her candid opinion regarding the monotony in hip hop music of today.
“These rappers nowadays, all of them wanna die,” Cardi B said in her IG Live video. “They all wanna die. All these n***s need to stop doing lean and smoking weed. You know, this the thing about these rappers, right? They get money and they start buying too much muthaf****n’ weed, and too much lean and they make that slow s**t.”
Per usual, the Afro-Latina rap superstar kept it all-the-way real, explaining that she is exactly what hip hop needs to spice things up—especially when it’s clubbin’ time.
“I know what n****s is missing in the club. Me!” Cardi says in the video. “They missing me, they missing my music. And now that I’m in the game and everything and I be seeing all these muthaf****s on Twitter like, ‘You need to have rap, you need to have bars, you need to have this…’ I want to make music to turn the f**k up. ’Cause when I go to the club, that’s what n***s wanna hear. N****s ain’t hearing no—I feel like we keep hearing the same song over and over and over again.”
Reiterating that her angle to music is a necessity to keep the club pumped, Cardi B also emphasized that she is the remedy to hip hop’s current uniformity.
“The club need me,” Cardi B said during the video. “The strippers need me. The hoes need me. The muthaf****n’ get money n****s need me. I wanna shake my a**!”
Although there is a lot of thematic diversity within today’s hip hop community, those with similar styles tend to get played the most and land on the same radio playlists. Giving the impression that there’s only one style of rap being made.
With that being said, it all boils down to what the public wants to hear on the radio, in the club, at a house party or anywhere else. The more people require uniqueness in their hip hop music—and artists—the more uniqueness there will be. The more people don’t, then it won’t.