Boo the Moment, Rue the Critic, Screw the Noise (Vol. 2)
LaRussell's Lil Wayne comments sparked a debate that once again put the latter rapper's music under a spotlight, but it also revealed the true "substance" we look for in music.
Boo The Moment
Up-and-coming rapper LaRussell sent the internet into a frenzy after his appearance on The Truth Hurts Podcast (shoutout Rosecrans Vic, Jeff Weiss, and Ms. Lucy Monroe). In a clip that went viral on social media, LaRussell said, “I had grew a disdain for Wayne just because I started listening to everything like I started maturing as a human and I'm like damn, this nigga wasn't talking about nothing.” In the full clip, shared by Jeff Weiss, LaRussell does reinforce his love, appreciation, and respect for the New Orleans rap legend, but he also called out Wayne’s inability to deliver rap songs that “really talked about something.”
To the surprise of no one, the clip quickly became the main topic of discussion in the music world. The reactions to LaRussell’s comments were evenly divided, with some agreeing with his thoughts while others found his point to be downright wrong. To the latter point, the rapper’s extensive catalog, there are at least 50 songs that contradict that statement and the ensuing conversation online revealed many of those songs. Nonetheless, there’s a bigger conversation to be had as to what we qualify as “something” — aka substance — in rap music, and that was my takeaway from the whole kerfuffle that ensued after LaRussell’s comments.
Critics of Lil Wayne who agreed with LaRussell and questioned the substance within the rapper’s music all seemed to be confusing “substance” with other descriptors. For example, saying Wayne is not a conscious rapper to the level of a Kendrick Lamar, Tupac, Black Thought, or Common is a fair claim. Another example: Saying a decent size of Wayne’s isn’t the most relatable rapper is also a fair claim. You can make a pretty good argument for either of those critiques, but saying his music has no substance? That’s too far.
Pardon me for taking the technical route, but by definition, substance means “the quality of being important, valid, or significant.” Important, valid, OR (I have to emphasize the “or” here), significant. By saying Wayne’s music lacks substance, you’re saying that you cannot put his music into any of those three buckets which is outrageous, especially on the “valid” part of things. Substance, unlike most things in music, is a fairly objective quality — either something is or isn’t there. Outside of that, (mostly) everything else in music is subjective and free game for critiquing.
For whatever reason, I think a lot of rap fans are obsessed with pulling rappers down from their rightful and well-earned positions as artists on some specific Mt. Rushmore of acclaim. These revisionist historians arrive to tell us an artist wasn’t actually that good, or that a beloved classic shouldn’t be heralded as a such, or that their run atop the game wasn’t actually that. All that and more, all while forgetting that we were all there to see what they’re so sure didn’t happen.
Furthermore, it’s moments like these that remind me of how harsh we can sometimes be in critiques our Black musician. Every one doesn’t have to be a conscious rapper like Common or Kendrick Lamar. Every one doesn’t have to try and be overly relatable like Drake. In the over 50 years that rap has existed, one of the most beautiful things about it is the various styles and flavors that live within it. There was never one way to do it. At bare minimum, rap was meant to be entertaining, and when you’ve done that for millions and millions of people for well over two decades, it’s silly to try and reappraise theirs talents in retrospect because you wish they went about it differently.
Rue The Critic
One of the worst things we can do with rap music is dilute it a form a music that “says nothing.” This is a genre that took decades to earn its long overdue respect as one of music’s most popular genre. This is a genre that reflects the hardships and tough environments that Black and brown people are forced to endure, and a genre that these same individuals use to express their pains and even forget about them in favor of being entertained a song or album’s duration. All of this is much more than “nothing.”
It’s these things that we have to keep in mind before we reduce hip-hop into a single lane or two of consciousness and/or relatability. Rap is surely powerful when it’s used as a vessel for social commentary, political messaging, or narratives about personal or socioeconomic struggles, but that’s not all it’s good for. At its base, just like other genres of music and mediums of art, rap can just be entertainment and that right there is substantial enough when that goal is accomplished.
The best way to analyze hip-hop, and all music overall, is to leave our bias outside of the listening experience, or at bare minimum, be aware of those biases. After that, it’s listening to understand what the artist hoped to achieve with their piece of music and rating them on how successful they were in accomplishing that. It’s the classic “show, don’t tell” technique that we were all taught in our earliest days of elementary school. When we judge an artist for having intentions opposite of what we hoped for them to have, that is, listening with no intention to understand, we shift art from entertainment to some for-hire service.
One of the most ironic and contradictory points about the whole substance conversation is how many people fall into the same elitist ideologies that once and still try to disqualify hip-hop as true art. It’s something that hip-hop has endured since its inception, from both external critics and internal traditionalists. It started with those who called the use of vinyl to extend beat breaks a disgrace, to those who cried in agony as hearing rap be used as a vessel for social and political commentary. There’s also the genre’s later resistance to the South’s contribution through it’s rise in trap music and, of course, the more recent development of “mumble rap,” a title that was more dismissive than accurate in hindsight. By asking the genre to conform to the status quo, we forget that at its best, rap thrives as a rebellious force against the grain and not by following the rules.
Screw The Noise
It wasn’t that long ago that Lil Wayne closed his Tha Carter V album with “Let It Work All Out,” a triumphant tale of preservation and destiny. That’s substance right? How about “God Bless Amerika” from I Am Not A Human Being II, or “Nightmares Of The Bottom” and “How To Love” from Tha Carter IV, or “Dr. Carter” and “DontGetIt” from Tha Carter III, or “Hustler Musik,” “Receipt,” and “Shooter” from Tha Carter II, or “I Miss My Dawgs” from Tha Carter? That’s ten songs with the substance that many tried to claim was nonexistent in Wayne’s music. The substance is there, we just have to be receptive to what it could be rather than only listening for what we’re looking for.
The slippery slope that unfurls from questioning the substance of Wayne’s music is a lot more problematic than it is reasonable. If we say this about him, what do we say about Future, or Young Thug, or Gunna, or 21 Savage, and so on? Are we to dismiss their music as well. No because, back to my prior point, each of their music strikes as entertaining, at bare minimum, in addition to each having a number of records that cater to the conscious and relatable substance that some deem as a baseline need in music.
What is music if it is not overtly conscious and relatable? Is it nothing? Or can’t it be informative? Can’t it be humorous? Can’t it just be some form of escapism? J. Cole’s The Fall Off isn’t any more or less valid than Don Toliver’s Octane as neither are to Wale’s Everything Is A Lot. Each had a set goal to accomplish and each took equally different routes in hopes of reaching that goal. Whether they did so is a conversation for another day and a different newsletter, but the allowance to create and deliver the substance of art as one desires is the one the that should never been altered or tampered with.
The takeaway from LaRussell’s comments and the ensuing analyzation of Lil Wayne’s rap career is that maybe our expectations of rap, and maybe even Black music overall, are too limiting. It isn’t only worth listening to when it exists in a certain lane. Hell, some rappers care too much about having substance that the music part of it all gets lost. There’s a better conversation to be had on this topic by both LaRussell and fans who agreed with his thoughts, as The Mallory Bros. noted in a recent podcast episode that covered the topic. It would’ve been one thing to say that Wayne’s art no longer aligned with what you were seeking at a certain point. But to completely write it off as nothing? That says more about us as fans that the artist we’re criticizing.
Perfectly written
Great read 🔥