Is it really all that damn serious?
Words: Mario “2Tyme” Hankton

I am watching a tube video of R. Kelly mildly expressing irritation at some of today’s artist’s lack of respect and integrity. It made news about a week or so ago, but the content therein had been brewing for some time. Ironic how history repeats itself… Seems like just the other day Kells was unseating Aaron Hall as the new R&B King…

The irony of his personal troubles and his professional opinion are too something to marvel, but the reality is, he’s made some tracks (pun intended) during his reign. Then I immediately think about the age old first person musical argument. “YALL aint nothin! without David Ruffin!”

Artists, or their supporters, have been exclaiming themselves as the savior of music in one way or the other since the inception of the art form. It was a method of marketing one’s ability or sales potential and in other ways it’s just that good old ID (see Sigmund Freud).

Rappers are notorious, or should I say N.O.T.O.R.I.O.U.S, for committing first person acts of “big timing.” Don’t even think for a millisecond that this is unique to Hip Hop and R & B, or that fighting through sound just started. I won’t even take you all the way back to Africa for that.

As I listen to Kells and think about the Trey Songz angle, I can’t help but feel like the machismo thing is much more sinister now than it ever was before. Artists are doing more than bragging about just skills. They are bragging about saving the genre!! How blasphemous is that?!

In an age of economic hardship, particular artists claim to be “sellin all the records” so to speak. This is especially dangerous because it threatens the musical integrity of both R&B and Rap.

Although band feuds are commonplace in all music, they hold a special place within R&B and Hip Hop. Once an artist establishes him or herself to be legitimately successful “If you aint got no Bentley you aint ballin,” the next plausible move always seems to be the proclamation of being the best. THE BEST. THE BEST. AT MUSIC. (Practice man? Practice?)

I often found myself incensed in the past when people would not consider rap as music. Some still don’t consider R&B as classic American music. I still believe that battling for rap superiority is extremely important and necessary, but only because rhyming is inherently competitive. Still, I would think what nerve these people had? After all the raw expression and energy it takes to create a tight beat and a tight rhyme?

Now artists are directly defending themselves publicly and even thicker, publicly attacking each other to sell records. So has it finally come to money over music or has it always been that way?

Sometimes, while accidentally thinking about It, it all seems like one big pissing contest. Now Who Da Best? (Practice man? Practice? Practice?)