It has often been said that Hip Hop is a young man’s game, but increasingly, emcees in their late 30s and even 40s have begun to become more commonplace.
In an interview with HipHopSince1987, Rap vets Ice Cube, 44, and Bun B, 40, spoke about why they continue to rhyme, and don’t adhere to age limits.
“I think it’s crazy,” said Cube of the idea that an emcee should retire at a young age. “I think any young man thinkin’ about, talkin’ about like they want to reture, and they not playing sports, then they crazy. What the fuck we gonna do? Go fishin’?”
“This is what we do, and it is no shelf life for an emcee if he’s committed to his fans,” he added.
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Cube admitted that pressure does exist for established acts to “bow out gracefully.” “It can be frustrating, because it’s an ‘out with the old, in with the new’ mentality. But if you’re committed to your fans, and you’re happy with your spot, keep doing records, and you keep giving the people what they want to hear, and you’re happy with what you get out of it… We’ve all carved out a career out of this, it’s all gravy, so whatever we get out of the game, we should be happy with.”
Bun B chimed in, stating that as long as fans still wanted him around, he’d be there. “You gotta remember that Hip Hop is one of the youngest art forms out there. Still a very young genre of music. Our fans are still in a certain age group, and they haven’t given up on us yet, so I see no reason why we should be giving up on them.”
“We just gettin’ to the point where our fans are fifty, sixty years old, but we still see artists out there giving them that music, man,” said Bun. “They wanna come to the shows, they still wanna listen to the music that they appreciated in their younger years. They haven’t given up on life; they haven’t given up on enjoying themselves and partying, and we should still be there to facilitate that.”
Watch the interview below, which also includes both emcees poking fun at one another over the depature of basketball player Dwight Howard from Cube’s Los Angeles Lakers to Bun’s Houston Rockets:
Ice Cube just recently ended the ultimate Hip Hop veteran tour, the Kings of the Mic Tour with LL Cool J, Public Enemy, and De La Soul.
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