Over the course of the year we’ve witnessed numerous award shows from the Grammys to the Vmas, to the Mobos and the Brit Awards and its been a common theme that artists who deserved at least a little bit of recognition have been snubbed for a watered down, more “commercial’ friendly counterpart, this recognition doesn’t need to be an award it could be an onstage moment but still the various outlets have not given  particular  artists a chance. For example just the other day at the Vmas Kendrick, Drake, J Cole weren’t even present at the awards show because they somehow know their talents wouldn’t be appreciated, same thing that happened at the Brit Awards- Grime and  Uk Hip Hop  artists had to accompany the polarising  Kanye West (future presidential candidate) to even get some shine. It feels like no matter how much noise the great aforementioned US acts make, they are being overshadowed by artists with a couple of hits who have the advantage of lighter skin complexion such as Iggy Azelea and Macklemore. In the UK it is a slightly different story as the Brit Awards still refuse to allow our ‘street music’ to be elevated onto a nationwide platform and be celebrated while they swell are favouring white contributions to the culture over our own as Sam Smith, Ed Sheeran and Jess Glynne are sweeping up awards for fun while others who are equally as talented or maybe even more so such as Angel, Shakka, MNEK. In the case of the births artists they have undeniable talent and put contributions into the culture making great music while respecting the groundwork laid for them which you have to respect.

The television companies that co ordinate these shows have realised how powerful the culture is and want to tap into and some may so expand, others might say exploit but it is key for them to not try market it on one type of person-i.e the white person and show the doors of Hip hop, Rnb, Soul and Grime are open to everybody and anybody who wants to make great music and positive contributions towards the culture. Although it may seems like this is a rant a lot of amazing moments have happened for both cultures at award shows for example John Legend and Common getting a 5 minute standing ovation at the Oscars for their awe-isprining  performance of ‘Glory’ from Selma and the perviously mentioned Brit performance which put Uk hip hop and Grime on national television for the first time in years.

Overall I believe it is our duty as listeners and supporters of the culture to not support the mainstream music awards unless they fairly represent our cultures correctly and fairly until that point we just have to keep supporting the artists and people who are trying to make great music and who are trying to help communities by giving back.

In the past RnB legend and Hollywood leading man Tyrese Gibson became the first(and only mainstream) to speak about the prominence of Hip Hop influence on modern RnB music with the leaders of the new generation  Omarion,Trey Songz, August Alsina and Chris Brown either rapping on records or featuring rappers on a lot of their projects. When promoting his new and supposedly last solo album Black Rose- which is currently number 2 on the billboard chart, Tyrese stated  his slight displeasure yet being white proud that his album is the “only pure RnB album not featuring 15 rappers” and he’s without ‘any gimmicks”. Tyrese also challenged  his competitors such as Usher, C-Breezy and others to try and make a pure RnB album without any hip hop features. Mr. Gibson raises an interesting question which is do RnB artists  need rappers for shine these days? The Ideal answer to this question would no as RnB is a strong enough genre drapped in history which makes Hip-Hop seem like a baby yet today it is rare to see artists who do RnB receive shine unless their leading single features one of hip hops elite, which is the sad reality of the situation. The marriage of Hip Hop and RnB is essential to our culture- of course it has created  many timeless classics throughout the 90’s and 00’s yet Tyrese’s point shouldn’t be taken out of context he wants the marriage to continue but he wants the RnB to contribute to paying the bills without  the help of Hip Hop and it wants to stay together but keeps its independence .

Hip Hop is the biggest genre in the world at the moment to be entirely honest it is the so it is hardly surprising its big cousin is brought into the action but the RnB should be able to share the same stage yet not be overshadowed. Tyrese’s proposition isn’t impossible and unreasonable it just takes some of the biggest names to be brave and step out of their comfort zone. On a side note Tyrese’s new album is a spectacle and could be a amazing moment in history as well as a great way for Black Ty to bow out of the game- hopefully theres a TGT part two on the way.

Finally the state of RnB at the moment is in a good space commercially  as well as great music is being produced yet the art is slowly fading  but hopefully the newer artists and the old heads can breathe new life into the game.

In the last week social media and the world of hip hop has erupted starting through a twitter tirade by rapper Meek Mill claiming his collaborator had ghost writers and thats the reason Drake didn’t tweet out out his recently  released  album Dreams Worth More Than Money which Drake is featured on, many people calling Drakes verse one of/if not the best  verse on the album. Drake stayed silent on all of his social media outlets until he released  a diss track called “Charged Up” six days ago to mixed reviews some stating it was too soft overs stating it was just ‘warning shots’. The World awaited a response from Meek, but no music came only a tweet calling Drakes track ‘ Baby Lotion soft” and mockingly acknowledging  Drake “wrote this himself”four days passed and no music came from the MMG emcee and almost out of  thin air Drake dropped another diss “Back To Back’ which contained many direct and aggressive shot at Meek as well as many quotable which would be turned into millions of memes on social media including ‘is that a world tour or your girls tour” and “shout to my boss b*tchs wifing n*ggas” which he imitates his label mate and friend Nicki Minaj adding more power to the diss. Yet again days passed and a response was pending many fans clowning Meek for taking too long till two days ago Meek dropped “Wanna Know” which features a sample of the legendary Undertaker which was met with mostly negative responses many claiming the battle is now “over” and millions of people including celebrities and even the  Toronto governor clowning Mill.

Now you know the background the real question has has it impacted Hip Hop negatively and positively. Firstly many people have been open to more artists beefing on wax for the traditional ‘sport’ of the genre and culture  which has been about from its infancy which has been welcomed but some, such as myself, have been dismayed by our generation to bandwagon by social media the amount of people who only listened to Meek’s response once and labelling “the worst diss i history” and Drakes “back to back” the best are just saying for followers and retweets which show has rap has been regressing as we expect beefs to be over in under a week when Nas took months to reply to Jay.

In my humble opinion Drakes first diss was okay with a few great bars firing warning shots and his second diss was very hard but not in the upper echelon of diss songs but was well stratgeized and planned out and Meeks seemed rushed and something thrown together. Hip Hop has benefited from hearing Drake at his best as an mc yet it hasn’t helped hip hop by showing how social media can warp peoples perception.

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.

This is a question which has been on the tongue of many music fans  lips for the past 10-15 years, even though in Britain we gave events such as the MOBO awards and platforms such as Channel AKA, Link Up TV, SBTV and GRM Daily, it seems in Britain there is a lack of a constantly successful platform to link all types of music which is  of black origin and there is not one which reaches the entire world or even certain parts of the nation we live in. All the aforementioned platforms/organisations are the leaders along with Radio 1XTRA that provide a voice for our type of music- all of which have done massive amounts of work to expand the platform for us. America has had BET aka Black Entertainment Television for over 3 decades and although it was gotten some negative criticism  it is undoubtedly the leading platform for urban music, with a wide range of programming not just in music.

People have argued that creating this type of program may cause resentment in society as it could isolate the culture from other people which will not be the aim, the best way around this is to make it accessible as possible to everybody  and try to do its best not to portray common negative stereotypes.It should be a collaborative efforts of all the previously mentioned platforms and successful British entertainers to make sure it does not get used to extort the people for their talents. For this type of program to thrive there has to be prevention of external people from outside the culture getting involved as they would only care for the financial benefits. The disadvantages of a station like this is at first it would polarise or spilt public opinion and there will be allegations  thrown into the woodwork which will be outrageous but the most important thing is to believe in the idea and for everybody involved to love/enjoy  the culture.

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Over the past ten- fifteen years there has been a slight shift in urban music- as we as people have been allowing ourselves to become enthralled by catch choruses and booming beats(not all of us some), this is not to say the odd club banger is bad- far from it but when looking  through urban playlists or the dubious ‘ charts’ 85 percent of the music is influenced by the sounds of DJ Mustard, Hit Boy or Mike Will Made It this is not new however. Whenever a genre goes past the point of ‘mainstream’ people want to come and influence the culture in their own particular way sometimes positively, sometimes negatively yet we as consumers should control every song played on the radio, recently rap has been experiencing a period of a temporary balance with J Coles album being the  first to go platinum without  feature in over 25 years and his peer/rival Kendrick Lamars album being hailed as “classic” and selling like hot cakes, only few Rnb acts in the last coupe of years  have experienced success without following this current trend such as D’Angelo, The Weeknd, Ne-yo(to a certain extent) and Jason Derulo. None of these names are new this shows how hard it is to break-through at the moment when you don’t make this type of music this needs to change to add some variety, competitiveness and spark back into both RnB and Rap so everybody can thrive off a period of prosperity where no one has to follow any trends

To be entirely fair it is understandable when new artists who have just signed deals conform to a labels demands because they are grateful of the chance that has been given to them. Older artists don’t have an excuse for complete re- offending(in more ways than one!)- one song in that vein every once in a while but some old heads are using certain similar sounding beats on albums even though they have the respect and credibility   which most 98 percent of them earned. I believe they shouldn’t resort to this to stay relevant and sacrifice their artistic endeavours.

Whats your view on this claim

This past week music mogul, marvel Kanye West was recently featured on the cover of Paper magazine(the same magazine which released the infamous Kim K photos), on a press run awaiting his 7th studio album ‘ So Help Me God’ due to be released   later this year and is one of the most anticipated albums in all of music. The feature inside the magazine  detailed  an essay written by the man himself on the idea of the ‘American Dream” and events currently happening in America and his views on this.Firstly ‘Ye’ talks about how he wants to help and positively influence the younger generation of artists such as Drake, ASAP Rocky Taylor Swift and Kanye , saying “I think it’s so important for me, as an artist, to give Drake as much information as I can, A$AP, Kendrick, Taylor Swift, any of these younger artists as much information as I can to make better music in the future’. It seems Kanye has been trying to get on the positive and trying to find new way to ‘innovate’ comparing his old work to his recently new work and stating above all that he wants to be accepted into the fashion world “Should Kanye West just leave Fashion to the pros” because Ye is more of a profession to him and he hates people discrediting his art he said “I saw this article that asked, “Should Kanye leave fashion to the professionals?” That question is really ignorant, in a way, because the second I sell my first T-shirt or my first shoe, doesn’t that make me a professional?… Fashion is something that’s in my heart to do — in my spirit.” Ye also made controversial comments about racism saying “That was 20 years ago and of course we’ve come a long way now. That’s not the current state of mind. On “Never Let Me Down” I rapped, “Racism’s still alive, they just be concealing it,” but for the next generation that’s not necessarily true. Racism is something that’s taught, but for the new post-Internet, post-iPad kids that have been taught to swipe before they read, it’s just not going to affect them as much. They realize that we are one race.” This underlines Kanye view on how racism has developed and how he believes its less blatant.

Since the announcement of  the re- launch of Tidal by Hip Hop mogul and great Jay z there have been lots of opinions on what people believe the new music provider is going to like. Many have compared  it to Spotify  while others have said it should be free meanwhile artists have praised Jay Z’s promise to pay the highest percentage of royalties to them and songwriters which other subscription based music services have failed to do previously.  Even though Tidal has been praised by many for its innovativeness and it being the first to offer high royalty’s for artists ad being the first artist owned  music streaming service as well having unlimited listening time on both subscriptions available however it also garnered a lot of criticism for the high fidelity that most listeners won’t have the required advance headphones to enjoy or distinguish between the ordinary and high fidelity audio also some people have complained about how high the pricing’s  are for subscriptions, another public figure who expressed their disagreements with Tidal was Lily Allen who feared Tidal’s use of mega- stars and high prices could result in damaging the music industry more than helping it and increasing  of piracy which has been a major issue which has been exacerbated by the internet.On her Twitter page she wrote “I love Jay-Z so much, but Tidal is (so) expensive compared to other perfectly good streaming services, he’s taken the biggest artists… Made them exclusive to Tidal (am I right in thinking this?), people are going to swarm back to pirate sites in droves.”

In the past week Tidal CEO Andy Chen was replaced by a Interim replacement Peter Townsend which has been heavily reported on and poses questions about the state of the company at this current point, there have also been reports of Jack White and the man himself-Shawn Carter personally ringing up subscribers thanking them for their services.

Personally i believe it is great to see artists get rewarded for hard- work and love the concept of Tidal butI dint particularly enjoy the prices for subscriptions and seems at this point there is not a lot of thought being put in for consumers, but being the navy businessman backed by other successful people I believe Jay Z will be able to fix any problems with Tidal and make it a serious  player in the music streaming industry.