Am I Getting Old Or Does Rap Suck?

I went out with some friends Friday night with the focus on dancing to rap music. I used to love rap and still have an enormous stack of CDs in my room. It all started back in 1986 when I bought Licensed to Ill on cassette. I had a strange Walkman that had a speaker on it, and my friends and I spent many hours at the playground shooting hoops and reciting “She’s Crafty” at the top of our lungs.

From there, I got into Run DMC, LL Cool J, Heavy D., Audio Two, Kool Moe Dee and all the big names of the time. My father rolled his eyes and declared it a phase. But six years later in 1992 I was blaring House of Pain and Das EFX out of my car like absolutely no time at all had passed.

The last rap CD I ever bought was Art Official Intelligence by De La Soul and I think I listened to it once. I realized I just wasn’t into it anymore – but why? It’s not that I stopped liking the rap that I listened to 10 years ago. Friday night was proof of that – we watched a bunch of old school videos before we went out and the group of 7 people in my living room were loving it, as was I.

But when we got to the bar and the likes of Ludacris, Lil’ Bow Wow, Fifty Cent etc. started spinning, I wanted to be back on my couch watching Everlast jumping around.

So I have to conclude one of two things. Either I am thirty and rap simply seems stupid to me now (but I like the older stuff for sentimental reasons). Or modern rap has taken a direction that I just don’t dig. When I get home tonight, maybe I’ll listen to some Notorious B.I.G. back-to-back with a little Jadakiss and I expect the answer will present itself fairly quickly.