Are The Lyrics That Bad?
As I listened to Kendrick's latest work "GNX", I couldn't help but smile silently each time the topic of this episode crossed my mind. It was fitting that I was thinking about the quality of lyrics in our music these days as I listened to the latest album of one of the most lyrically conscious rap artists of this generation.
Undoubtedly, the lyrics we have in our music these days are watery. In fact, as a lover of rap songs, I'd rather listen to songs of old timers like Nas, DMX, Pac, T.I, Jeezy, Busta, Twista, Eminem and maybe, Wayne, compared to the likes of Lil Baby, Lil Nas X, Meek Mills and some of these new generation rap-stars.
My excuse for preferring the oldies to the new guys has always been that these new dudes are lyrically poor and empty; they only sing about ill gotten wealth, sleeping with multiple women, drinking booze till they hung over and going hard on lean or coke. "Why would a reasonable person want to listen to a 23 year old boy talking about his love for hard drugs?" I wondered.
But then, as I think this through, something hit me: one of Wayne's most successful songs ever was Lollipop, where he sang about sex for the majority of the song. Out of Pac's huge music catalogue, Hit Em Up is still rated higher than Changes till this day. One talked about sleeping with someone else's wife; the other addressed societal challenges and was so motivational that Barack Obama used it during his Presidential campaigns.
Guess what? The diss track Hit Em Up remains the more popular, more talked about of the two. For all the wonderful works of Nas as a cultural rapper, Ether, a diss track targeted at JayZ, remains more popular than One Mic, a real masterpiece of motivation and encouragement.
The last time I listened to my collection of Pac's songs, I couldn't help but notice that he sang songs for all seasons. Some of the songs were so bad they nearly made my ear bleed. How Do You Want It was wild and dirty. Dear Mama was a deep, soulful one. Keep Ya Head Up remains motivational. A couple others targeted societal ills in his neighborhood. In the end, he sang whatever he wanted, wack lyrics or not!
Kendrick's biggest song this year is a diss track written to destroy Drake. I listened to it on Boomplay only once and didn't play it again. I didn't even bother to download it. I don't like the beats and the lyrics sound watered down compared to what I expected from a Kendrick song. Despite that, the song got several Grammy nominations and will probably get him at least one Grammy win next February. I can easily list 10 of his songs that are better but they never went viral. Why?
My point is, music has always been for all purposes, for all seasons. Wonderful lyrics have never been the only reason why people listen to music. If it was, guys like Michael Jackson and genres like rock and heavy metals will never make it to the top. Awilo's music would never dominate Nigeria in the late 90s. The guy sang with crude French we knew nothing about.
Either way, there are still tons of music with wonderful lyrics out there. The question is, are people listening to it? Freddie Gibbs dropped a wonderful rap album last week. He barely sold 300k. The lyrics were dope; the beats were on it. Yet, Gibbs is no one's fave. So very few people are listening to it.
Wizkid dropped a dance song a few days back. Guys in my hood nearly blew their tops because of it. I'm yet to listen to it because I already assume it's not my type. But I listened to the one he sang with Brent Faiyaz, Piece of My Heart, and I'm still jamming to it. Such a beautiful, soulful song got knocked down by some silly dance song with presumably shallow lyrics. That's the world we live in now.
Conclusively, as far as I'm concerned, lyrics to songs remain the way they have always been. Artists drop songs with wonderful lyrics that strike some chord in us; they also drop songs with wack lyrics that still hits hard. It's up to us to decide what we want to listen to.
