In an indepth interview with The New Yorker, Brand Nubian rapper Lord Jamar explains his blueprint on Hip Hop, why it's losing it's way and his feeling on representing the 'conservatives' in the genre.
Over the past year, the rapper has been vocal about his views on the current direction of Hip Hop. Jamar says that he's a representative of what many don "old school' and wants to perseve the culture as much as he can.
"I'm that voice of what hip-hop used to be," Jamar he said. "I think I represent the hip-hop conservatives. And I use the word 'conservative' in the sense of conservation: I'm trying to conserve hip-hop and its essence."
Jamar has stated his dilike of the sound to the look of that the genre represents today. His comments of Kanye West's kilt were buzzworthy along with his disgust for Macklemore. Througout his interview, he makes it clear that pushing the bar is important, but there have to be limits.
"I have no problems with pushing boundaries," he said. "But everything has its limits. How far do you go with this pushing of boundaries before you've turned it into something else? That's what I want to know. How much water can you add into the whiskey before you no longer get drunk?"
Jamar also mentions that soon Hip Hop will be owned by people who damaged the cultures of Jazz and Rock & Roll; genres that have Black roots but were made popular by other races.
"At the end of the day, it's another hijacking of the genre, which we've seen in history time and time again," he said. "Look, it happened in rock and roll. It happened with jazz. Twenty years from now, we're gonna have the equivalent of Kenny G rapping. Because Kenny G is jazz now! So we're gonna have some Kenny G-type rappers, and it's gonna be a white dude with balding hair, in a suit, doing it at the lounge in Vegas."
Source: newyorker.com
