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What is Realness in Hip-Hop?
Often times, I’ve found people are transfixed on the concept of realness in hip-hop. Most times, it’s a very specific sound from the 90s, that Golden era where rap was still fleshing itself out in what it was going to be. The multiple dimensions of how rap could coexist were beginning to form, varying from the conscious, jazzy stuff to the boom-bap NY raps to its West Coast contemporaries in the G-Funk gangsta rap sound. On the outside, you could find the south, peeking its head in every once in a while. The same goes with the Midwest. They commanded respect. For the south, it would receive its just due through the force of personality in Outkast. They blended its roots with the jazzier, funkier sounds some had grown accustomed to. It took perfection to reach its heights. Even then, Outkast were viewed as the exceptions to the rule. It was about what was real hip-hop. But what even is real?
I think back to the 2016 XXL freshman cypher with Kodak Black, Lil Uzi Vert, 21 Savage, Lil Yachty, and Denzel Curry and the notorious backlash it received when it came out. It was harmless fun in a cypher crammed with bouncy flows. That wasn’t a…
