15 years ago, when Common was the Man

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgaRjBXi1NY

I would be interested to hear what people who don't like rap think about this song. I listened to this song all the time when I was a teenager in 1996 when this song first came out. Brings back a lot of memories for me. :)

This rap features Common, the controversial rapper racist. I wouldn't shake his hand if I saw him, but I used to love this song. :) Still do. ;)

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

I would say this is the "good" kind of rap. The rap that is about lyrical skill, East Coast "super lyrical" rap, as opposed to what one of my Italian friends used to describe as talking about "bitches and ho's".

There's rap on an intellectual/artistic level like this, there's gangster rap, and there's candy rap (I'm guessing that would be someone like Usher and Will.i.am of the Black Eyed Peas). Songs like this are rare, from my experience. From my perspective, the 80's and 90's was the golden era for rap, and what followed was the decline of rap.

[W.E.B. Du Bois]

While I'm on my stroll down memory lane, I would say that what made Biggie and Tu-Pac the two greatest rappers in the genre was that they did gangster rap (which is not really intellectual) in a realistic kind of way, that also brought the poverty of the ghetto through the speakers, and were very clever in lyrics as well as really awesome production with beats.

As a human being, Chris Wallace (aka Notorious BIG) was a piece of shit. He was a drug dealer who even sold drugs to a pregnant woman. However his first album was my personal favorite rap album of all time. I threw the album away when I found out about Wallace, but I still do cheat from time to time and listen to it on YouTube.

* Edit: After I posted up a video, I noticed in the lyrics "jealous ass crackas" and have decided to remove the video. Fair is fair.