Masta Ace has a bone to pick with disgruntled rap fans, claiming those who believe there’s a lack of “good music” in the genre today should expand their search efforts beyond what’s fed to them.
During an appearance on Lord Jamar, Rah Digga and Godfrey’s Yanadameen Godcast podcast, the former Juice Crew MC was asked for his thoughts about the current state of Hip Hop and voiced his displeasure with what he sees as a lack of effort from critical listeners.
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“I think there’s good music out there,” he began. “You got to search for it. You gotta make an effort. If you focus on just what’s on the radio, then you’re going to lose every time.
“If you just listen to the radio, then you’ll be convinced that there’s no good music out there, no good artists out there. But there is actually good music out there and talented artists out there, but you got to be willing to search for it.
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He added: “It disappoints me how lazy our generation of fans are. They only listen to what they’re being spoon-fed. You don’t know how many times I run into people — and they usually look like us — and they say, ‘Oh shit, Masta Ace! Damn, I ain’t heard from you in a while. What you been up to? Last thing I remember you dropped was ‘Me & The Biz.’ I’m like ‘What?'”
Since that song was released in 1990, Masta Ace has put out more than half a dozen solo projects, in addition to full-length collaborations with Edo G, Marco Polo and his eMC supergroup.
“If it ain’t on the radio… it’s horrible… it does not exist to them,” he concluded, driving his point home.
Masta Ace is far from the first artist to weigh in on the current state of Hip Hop of late. Earlier this year, Dr. Dre seemed perplexed as to why people are so keen to hate on modern-day Hip Hop — even though he was quick to admit he doesn’t listen to (or even like) most of it.
“Hip Hop is what it is,” he said during an interview with Kevin Hart on the comedian’s Peacock show Hart to Heart. “Anybody that’s talking about the state of Hip Hop right now, when talking about it from a negative place, sounds like somebody’s fuckin’ grandfather. This is just what it is. Hip Hop is evolving. If you don’t like it, don’t listen to it, you know what I’m saying?”
He continued: “I’m keepin’ it all the way 100 with you. Some of this shit, most of this shit, I don’t like. I don’t listen to a lot of that shit. But I’m not hatin’ on it. I’m never gonna hate on it.”
More recently, Erick Sermon suggested that today’s dominant trends are uncharacteristic of the craft he helped to pioneer.
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“I just think that Hip Hop is just not Hip Hop,” he said during an interview with Say Word! Podcast earlier this month. “I just think that they should change the name. No disrespect, but that’s not what that is. Hip Hop can evolve, but this is not evolving.
“Evolving is Melle Mel to Rakim stage to the whole nine, to Wu-Tang [Clan] to Murder Inc., DMX — that’s evolving. Y’know, Cam’ron. Y’know, Dipset — that’s evolving.”
