Its a cliche and common phrase  “history often repeats itself’ yet it happens in every aspect of life and possibly the most subtle yet potent occurrences happen in entrainment specifically in music. For example as James Brown became arguably the first accepted, respected and big selling black artist for a time known as the most important figure in popular music history , an idol of his who spent hours replicating his dance moves and watching his tapes would become the “greatest entertainer of all time’- this boy was Michael Jackson. Thats the greatest example and it happens in all genres of music where an artist replicates what another artist does before them whether it being selling out the same venues, innovating through similar styles or sampling work and recreating it in a way nobody thought could be possible. In Hip- Hop there is an unwritten principle which has been a staple of the culture which is originality- in other words don’t copy others and don’t allow others to copy from you, this has kept the genre competitive- this is why it is interesting seeing the development of artists and who they are influenced by their elders. Artists will always have ‘idols’ or ‘heroes’ who they looked up to in their youths who inspired them, which is a reason why certain traditions don’t ever get completely ‘out-dated’ or forgotten about.

The cream of the crop of this generation at the moment are J Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Drake who all know hot create amazing music without being trapped in what is popular a trait they all inherited from their idols which funnily enough all were competitors two decades earlier- Nas, Tupac and Jay Z these three artists all have/had the ability to be lyrically proficient yet make commercial music which didn’t feel forced or unnatural as well all three current artists using the niche’ created by the three legends. In the Uk Grime is in its infancy as a culture and genre yet it is clear there is already nostalgic element to grime music at the moment with artists swapping expensive designers for tracksuits and trap betas for 140 bpm essence- the new generation of grime is lead by Stormzy, Bugzy Malone, Bonkaz,Yungen and Youngs Teflon these artists are all students of the game who studied the first generation of grime artists such as Septa, Wiley, Footsie, Jme, Kano and Wretch 32, it is usually  a good thing when artists repeat history yet sometimes it can cause the culture to go backwards or even die due to the younger artists not learning from the older artists mistakes- there needs to be the right balance between the similarities and differences between artists of different generations  for Hip-Hop and its British distant cousin Grime to become the undisputed leading genres in the world.