Kianna St.Romain 11th Grade
Stanford
90’s Rap vs Modern Rap
English 1301
McCollister
Word Count: 893
Date: Thursday, December 11, 2014
No matter what your musical preferences are, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to assume that you have noticed the drastic shift in musical quality in the last 20 years. Anyone can easily point out a 90’s song from a list of modern music right away. However, the most prominent differences can be spotted in the Rap/Hip-Hop/R&B genres of music of the last two decades. They share very scarce similarities between the mid 90’s - early 00’s and the mid 00’s and early 10’s. Rappers now bear little similarities between the norm of 90’s hip hop legends.
The first major, and perhaps the most striking, difference between…show more content… Back in the early 90’s, rap wasn’t a mainstream, widely-known or accepted type of music. However, rap is extremely mainstream and even more popular than Pop music now than anyone probably ever thought it ever would be. Evidence of this can be seen on any common or widely used radio station, such as the Rickey Smiley Show, which plays a very large amount of modern rap music every day. More evidence can be seen even on the streets because children as young as eight years old to adults as old as 40 years listen it every day. Before, it was looked down and heavily discouraged for anyone to know of rap much less listen to and like rap or hip-hop music. Now, it very much accepted now, but it is not necessarily encouraged like many would like to believe.
An additional contrast between rap/hip-hop then and now is the underground vs the mainstream and the honesty found within their lyrics in one song then as opposed to the other now. On contrary to common belief, 90’s underground music, which is said to spark inspiration for modern mainstream rappers or 90’s mainstream, is not about living like ‘gangsta’ but rather the problems of the world, social and political. In contrast, modern mainstream rappers speak of whatever topic or issue that seems to be prevalent or popular enough in order to gain an increase in sales and fame rather than to inform the public of…show more content… First off, the hard work put in behind the music. Every rapper, no matter what musical era he debuts in, puts in months or even years into his work, making sure it is the best of the best and fits the image he/she is trying to sell. Rappers such as Eminem and Dr. Dre debuted in the 90’s and have ever since bled sweat and tears in order to be where they are today, which so happens to be in the top 10 biggest mainstream rappers of modern rap music. Secondly, rappers are only successful because they are absolutely determined to share their story or message that they want to get across to the world. Jay-Z and B.o.B wanted to spread their respective messages and, though they are from two totally different eras of music and thought processes, they still both manage to sell very well because they continue to strive to get the public to hear, no matter of they make it to the very top of the ‘rap game’ or