Eric B and Rakim made news early last week after a tweet went out from the rap duo's joint Twitter account lamenting the "devolution of rap music" which the tweet purported is currently underway.
"You are now witnessing the devolution of rap music," read the tweet from Feb. 12. "The death of poetry and smoothness, they use this. The absence of a message. The inability to create meaningful change through words and verses, but the worse is, they don’t even know they hurt this artful purpose, it’s tragic.”
While recently speaking with TMZ, however, Rakim said he had nothing to do with the tweet.
“Hip-hop has taken a lot of different routes throughout the years, man. I’ve been around since 1986. I’ve seen hip-hop go through a lot; at this point, I just want to see it prosper. At this point there is different forms of hip-hop. My thing is, you have to let young artists be young artists. I was once a young artist.
"It’s just to make sure the people understand the difference between hip-hop and rap. I have no problem with rap, but I’m from more of the lyricist school. But, you know, to each his own, man. The young kids out there doing their thing, I can’t knock them. Like I said, they’re keeping it alive right now.”
Rakim did reveal that he believes some artists are making a negative impact on the culture, though.
“Without no disrespect to any artist, there’s a lot of degrading music out there, as far as degrading the culture and degrading society, as well,” he said.
Watch the full interview above.
Source: complex.com
