Maybe I didn’t hear this right. Did Soulja Boy just indirectly blame Nas for the abysmal sales of his latest album? Did the Billboard cover boy just suggest that Hip-Hop is dead? (Damn it! I swore I would never utter, nor write that phrase eveeeerrrr again.) Did Soulja Boy just call some of the Hip-Hop Nation brain dead parrots who simply repeat what the perceived experts say? Okay, well maybe that’s kinda sort of the truth. But until Soulja Boy is actually welcome in the Hip-Hop Nation, which will probably be the 1st of never, he really is in no position to mock the brethren.
I’m assuming Mr. Tellem felt that his mini-monologue was a sincere challenging of an already overly-challenged phrase. However, it came off as a selfish thought theft being used as an excuse for the fact that no one bought his sophomore effort.
I also find it quite amusing that this video popped up as the writers around the web (including yours truly) started regretting their 2008 contempt for SB and cutting him a collective break. I guess regretting regret is going to be the way of the walk in this case. I don’t even think the “respect the kid’s grind because he’s making that paper” crew can save him now.
People are already contemplating what Ether 2 is going to sound like. Considering what Ron Browz has been kicking out lately, I think that nostalgic pairing should be left in the past. Mr. Jones’ bars broken up with an extra helping of auto-tuned ooooohhhhh’s will deflate his credibility a bit since no one seems to like that handy dandy tool much these days. And there really is no point of slicing someone’s wrist after they have already shot themselves in the head. A Nas response would simply be over-kill and aren’t we moving to a kinder, gentler Hip Hop? That’s what the prognosticators are saying anyway.
Here is the rub though. I’ll bet you a snotty Benjamin that there are some folks who agree with him. It’s not like that whole HHID movement didn’t encounter resistance. There were some pretty thoughtful critics who pulled out the e-daggers when Nas started marketing his most controversial album to date. Hell, people are still talking about it. So is SB now the poster child for the anti-HHID movement or is he just another loyal member of the HHID club who has strayed from the list of usual suspects? Or maybe he is simply tossing his hat into the ring for the next time Nas needs a good PR person.
If you ever hear Nas say, “I don’t like rap music right now,” you know what’s up; especially if it comes on the tail end of a freestyle ode to the plantation overseers. The more I think about it, the more some of what Soulja Boy said makes sense. I mean if anyone can spot a dumb ass remark in a hay stack, it would be him.
Seriously though, when Nas was making his rounds right after HHID dropped, he said one of the things that led him to using Hip-Hop is Dead as his title was the younger generations expectation that those who blazed the Hip Hop trails they skipped down unfettered would step to the side. He felt there were some newbies who were buying into their own hype and that character flaw was bothersome to him. He said there were rappers out there who thought they should be considered big shots after one album and liked to take shots at folks who had been doing it for a while. How prophetic is it that the same personality type Nas credited for the back peddling of the genre has stepped to the forefront to cast blame. I mean in the world according to Soulja Boy, a few months ago Hip Hop was the best thing since ice and tats. It’s amazing how much a Soundscan report can change a thought process.
Look, I don’t think SB killed Hip-Hop any more than I think Nas did because to have a killer you have to have a death. It’s been a bumpy road and plenty of issues need to be addressed, but life support is not one of them. So SB and his Yums carriers can fill that empty coffin with all those extra copies of iSouljaboy Tellem that no one is going to buy and have their little funeral because the only thing round here that’s dead is that album.
“If you really think it’s dead n*cca, then revive it. You feel me? Do something. Bring it back to life.”
-Soulja Boy
