Dear Cynical Rap Fans

Bun tore this guy a new one and made this message clear: Respect the MC, especially if you can't do it.

One of my friends dropped a serious gem on me a few weeks back: being a blogger (especially dealing with music or sports) is essentially being a professional hater. Now all you bloggers and hip-hop fans out there, let that statement sink in and marinate for a few seconds. As a blogger or a rap fan, you specialize in hating. You might very well love and adore a few acts, genres and movement among the greater movement of hip-hop, yet a great deal of your time is spent actively, vehemently and vocally disliking other entities, if not for page views and ratings, then for e-props and an ego boost. That said, I can't even distance myself from that bug. This blog, in many a post, has been a forum for airing out my grievances with issues in rap, rather than bigging up those that I side with. The whole hip-hop universe is riddled with hate, from angry Twitter rants from artists and fans alike (guilty), to random beefs, to the blogs themselves being partial. It's as if we've forgotten the fact that hip-hop was supposed to be fun at one point. Gone is the jovial, gregarious nature of the inner-city art form, as hip-hop becomes cold, impersonal and pugnacious behind computer screens. You'd think that at a showcase of the purest form of hip-hop congregation, the freestyle battle, heads would be able to chime in on the victors without the jeering and hate coming from the crowd. That clearly wasn't the case.

Bun B is the trillest. Point blank. If you have any questions as to why all of his albums include the word 'trill', it is because Bun is simply trill. That's why you can't be mad at Bun issuing a challenge to one of you, a cynical, hating, hip-hop concert dweller, probably fresh off his millionth listen to Atmosphere's 'Overcast' and donning his traditional backpack. As a cynical hip-hop fan, this fool jeered and taunted the contestants from the crowd for the whole show, only to be called out on stage by The Trill One and fumble over a really, really shitty freestyle. That freestyle, and the deafening boos from the crowd not only gave him a first class ticket to the exit, they showed the dangers of being a hater.

Cynical hip-hop fans, how many of you can rap? ...I mean really rap. How many of you can piece together a verse over a beat, or write an ill chorus, or go off the top of the dome in a battle? How many of you can rock a crowd and have thousands singing along to your songs? *crickets* My guess is few, if any of you; myself included. Too often do you find that the ones criticizing the art form the most are the least exceptional at that artform. They say those who can't do, critic, and those who can't critic simply sit on the sidelines giving sideways comments. We can all name at least one head whose life goal and prerogative is to rake muck at every possible instance. Unfortunately, not all of them have or will have the blessing of being publicly embarrassed by a hip-hop legend to humble them. That said, it's not really our job to put you in your place, oh scornful hip-hop fan. Where did all of this hate come from anyway? Whether you're a failed rapper, producer, or manager who started a blog, or you've had a hip-hop snob license for over a decade, keep the hate to a minimum, especially if you can't rap to save a second of your life. Lord knows I might have needed this letter more than you, to remind me not only that not everything has to be battle, but also to work on my freestyling, in the event that I ever do get called out. To you, oh cynical hip-hop fan, I hope the same wisdom be imparted. Maybe you'll get to see the show instead of getting booed out of the venue...