Switched on Pop - Did Kendrick Lamar kill hip-hop?

Episode Date: November 5, 2024

Over the summer, the culture was shaken by the biggest rap beef this decade, between Drake and Kendrick Lamar. From “First Person Shooter” to “Not Like Us,” hip-hop listeners hung on each rapper’s every word and rebuttal, and for the first time in years, the genre felt exciting. Months after the beef had “ended,” Lamar released a track on Instagram dubbed “Watch the Party Die,” in which he lamented that hip-hop, in its current state, has lost its way and – as the title suggests – needs to die. It’s interesting, coming from Lamar, the supposed winner of the beef, and begs the question: is hip-hop dead?  On this episode of Switched On Pop, engineer Brandon McFarland takes us on a journey over the course of history, to answer the question: can hip-hop ever truly die? And if this form of it is not sustainable, what’s next?  Tracklist: Drake - First Person Shooter ft. J. Cole Future, Metro Boomin, Kendrick Lamar - Like That Drake - Push Ups Kendrick Lamar - Euphoria Drake - Family Matters Kendrick Lamar - meet the grahams Kendrick Lamar - Not Like Us Kendrick Lamar - Watch The Party Die Glass Animals - Heat Waves Desiigner - Panda Migos - Versace Public Enemy - Bring The Noise THE CARTERS - APESHIT Ariana Grande - 34+35 Kendrick Lamar - Alright Jay-Z - D.O.A. Cher - Believe T-Pain - I'm Sprung Lil Wayne - Lollipop ft. Static Kanye West - Heartless Drake - Over Travis Scott - Mamacita ft. Rich Homie Quan, Young Thug Lil Yachty - Poland DRAM feat. Lil Yachty - Broccoli Charlie XCX - 360 Too $hort - Oakland California Geto Boys - Damn It Feels Good to Be a Gangsta Geto Boys - Mind Playing Tricks On Me Blondie - Rapture Playboi Carti - Magnolia Playboi Carti - Rockstar Made Lil Uzi Vert - New Patek Lil Uzi Vert - Suicide Doors Lil Uzi Vert - XO Tour Llif3 Juice WRLD - Lucid Dreams (Forget Me) Future - Fuck Up Some Commas Tyler, The Creator – Sticky tisakorean - LET ME HEAR YOU SCREAM Travis Porter ft. Tyga - Ayy Ladies AgusFortnite2008, Stiffy & DJ Smokey – COF COF Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

If you're tired of endless scrolling to figure out where to eat, same. I'm Stephanie Wu, editor-in-chief of Eater. We've just launched the new-ish and way better Eater app. It has all the restaurants we love, gives you personalized picks wherever you are, and serves up smarter search results just for you. You can find my list of the best places for martinis and fries in New York City. And save your favorite spots, share lists, follow editors, and book right in the app. the Eater app at Eaterapp.com. It's free for iOS users. Welcome to Switchton Pop. I'm songwriter Charlie Harding.

And I'm engineer Brandon McFarland. Brandon, I'm so excited to have you on the show. You've brought me a story today. I did. I've been keeping my pulse on hip hop. It's the music that I love. I've been producing it for 20 years now. Yeah. And over this summer, I know you know, we've had like a major historic hip hop moment in the form of a rap battle between two of rap's biggest Stars, Kendrick Lamar and Drake. Yeah, I feel like this was like the biggest rap battle since the 90s. Definitely, you know, we can cite 50 cent Jarl. 50 Cent and a lot of people. But yeah, I think that this was a beef that was brewing for like 10 plus years.

So it was a long awaited for hip-hop fans like myself. It got nasty. That it did. I'm going to do a quick rundown of the play-by-play of this beef just to catch folks up to speed. The first song was First Person Shooter. by Drake featuring Jay Cole in which Jay Cole mentions a big three.

We're the big three like we started to leave but right now I feel like Muhammad Ali the three remaining great rapper attours of the moment. Yeah, that would be Kendrick Drake and Jay Cole. To which Kendrick responds a few months later in a song

on Future and Metro Boomin's album the song is called Like That And on the song like that Kendrick says And so this is where it starts the big three Nika, it's just big me And so this is where it starts The whole beef off

Drake drops a song called push-ups In response to Kendrick Pips squeak pipe down You ain't in no big three Cizzer got you wiped down Travis got you wiped down Savage got you wiped down Then Kendrick makes euphoria and says

Nickers y'all think of my life is rap That's whole shit I got a son to raise But I can see you don't know nothing about died All right now The wife and kids are in the mix now So gloves are off Drake responds in a song called Family Matters. Then not even hours after Drake drops Family Matters,

Kendrick drops Meet the Grams in which he hurls scathing accusations of Drake being a pedophile and writes a letter to his mom. Your son's a sick man with sick thoughts I think niggas like him should die. Kimmel Weinstein, she'd get fucked up in a cell for the rest they laugh. And Kendrick followed up again the next day with another song. The banger we all know in love, not like us. Why you trolling like a bitch, ain't you tired? Trying to strike a chord and it's probably a minor.

Yeah, it's like I didn't know you could really truly win a rap battle, but by all means, this is the biggest rap battle win of all time. This may be the clearest win. Like, most battles could be debatable. Yeah. Jay Z and Nas, some people still think Jay Z won 50 Sen and J-Rul is pretty one-sided. But this one is very clear, crossed the board. And Kendrick, he doesn't stop there.

On Juneteenth, he had the pop-out concert at the Kia Forum in Englewood, California. Yeah. And just very recently, in September, he announced that he's going to be headlining the Super Bowl halftime show. Okay, but this is back in the summer. Why are you bringing it up now? So on September 11th, and during the MTV Video of Music Awards, Kendrick releases this untitled song on his Instagram. I think it's time to watch the party die. Street knickers and the corporate guys, the rappers that report the lies. I need their families mortified. We can do life without them. Get their bodies organized. Tell me if you oblige. No more people can't.

I think Kendrick is saying here in this song, Watch the Party Dies, that mainstream hip-hop is one big party. And that party has invited the role. wrong element. He talks about corporate influences mixing with street culture and rappers that report lies, men hiding their insecurities behind money and power. He's saying that party needs to die. This is a bold claim. How do you feel about Kendrick saying that we got to burn this whole house down? Well, I want to be honest about two things. I'm 38 with two kids. I'm past my party days. and there's just not much on the hip hop charts that I can play in the minivan with my two girls

just to be honest so that's number one number two at the risk of sounding like an old head I do feel like my generation had a wider range of hip hop on the charts to choose from

and nowadays corporate interests do influence what rises to the top and at least it seems to me what rises to the top has already been done well this is interesting because I feel like

on the show, we've talked about some of the recent misfortunes that hip hop has found itself in, that on the Hot 100 for the last five years, there have been fewer hip hop songs. Some of that might be tipping back this year because of this rap battle, but genres like country are gaining while hip hop has been waning. I do attribute some of that to the fact that like basically every genre has assimilated sounds from hip hop into them. If you listen to any song, you hear 808 beats and trap hats have sort of become a commonplace in every kind of music. Exactly. Like that Glass Animal song from a couple years ago.

Heat Wave? Yes. Yeah, by the time you go to the outro, you even get some auto-tuned. It's got everything. It's got everything. You know what that made me think about was you even got new artists like Tommy Richmond distancing themselves from hip-hop in order to present themselves as a super, artist or right you know somebody who wants to make real music and so what does that mean for hip

pop then does it become like blues or jazz a genre of music that gets incorporated into the new styles to stay alive but isn't really thriving itself so we're in an existential crisis Kendrick Lamar reigned kingmaker going to be playing the Super Bowl says hip hop is dead what What does this mean for our show? So Kendrick's not the only person to declare hip hop's death. In hip hop's 50-year history, there's been at least half a dozen times that someone's declared hip-hop as dead. So here's what I want to do. Okay.

I want to look at some of the big moments in hip-hop history, some of the big moments in hip-hop's supposed death, and see if it teaches us anything about this moment in hip-hop and see if hip-hop can be reborn. Oh, okay. So where should we begin? How about we rewind just 10 years? Okay. In the 2010s during the SoundCloud era. Yeah. Okay, so the SoundCloud era is referred to by some as the Mumble Rap era. That's kind of a derogatory term.

Yeah. But for the sake of reference, we'll use Mumble Rap. Okay. And Mumble Rap is basically, this is maybe more inside baseball, but when you're recording a song in the studio, So a good strategy to record the song is to think about the cadence and the rhythm before the lyrics come. This is a method that's used by artists in every genre. We call it top lining, where you're just like saying a bunch of phonetics into the microphone.

And it's almost scatting, but slightly elevated scatting. Yes, yes, slightly elevated, but the melody and the rhythms are coming first. And then you look at that mumble and create the lyrics from there. Right. What rappers started to do on SoundCloud in the 2010s would have a rap style that was almost like unintelligible. It was had like a southern accent using southern slang or using hip-hop vernacular that was fairly new. It was hard to understand. Yeah, it was kind of like you just recorded the mumble track scatting that you were later going to punch in some, you know, more enunciated words.

but instead you just got the mumbling. I think a really good example to use here is the song Panda by designer. Pagas for Danny. Cerebellar, like random. The chaper go out of your grammar. They're a kiddler your banning. Hope your killers understand me. It's funny.

It's even like, I hope my killers understand me. And you can hardly understand him over the bras. Right. Which as I take it is supposed to be the sound of a machine gun, but I think is just like absolutely hilarious. all of the brs. I mean, I was still outside during this time. I loved that song.

I couldn't tell you any of the lyrics to the song, but I also kind of didn't care. Like, it was like a cool song. But you're saying there were critics. Like, people were not in on this scene. Oh, my God. I mean, he was kind of the martyr for that era because the song was so big.

And rappers who would call themselves real lyricists took offense to designer and the like. the sort of style of just like making it up on the microphone, not really not sitting here with it. But you know, didn't like Jay-Z also just make up everything on the microphone, never wrote down his lyrics? Yeah, and they called him a genius. You know, mumbo rap was criticized a lot for a lot of his cliches,

one of those being the triplet flow. Everybody in their mama tried the triplet flow. A brief breakdown on what triple flow is. We're basically talking about triplet, quarter-nose, triplet, eighth-nose. triplet eighth notes over a four four rhythm so right so instead of being like one and two and three and four and it's one and a two and a three and a four and a one triplet two triplet three triplet four triplet beautiful the group that really brought this triplet flow to the forefront and i think

perfected it is the migos of course we're going to look at migos for sachi I love it for satchi the top of my ardi My plug is junkatti He gave me the dust and I know that they mighty That he's a da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da That's the sound I feel like at the time when it came out It was very cool because it introduced

Just kind of this new rhythmic language Into hip hop flow Of course every rapper has used a triplet before It's a very common rhythmic division But it became so prominent in Migos That it sort of became like the default way of rapping I feel like. And as you put it,

it definitely became a cliche. Lots of people borrowed it. Yeah. No, you're totally right. Estelle Caswell, a friend of the show, had a very thorough breakdown in the Earworm series

about the triplets and rap. I think she said that some of the first rappers to do it were like public enemy. Oh. I know. So even though the triplet flow goes back as early as public enemy,

Migos really made. really made it mainstream. And by mainstream, I mean pop stars like Beyonce and Harold lyricist like Jay-Z use the triplet flow on the Carter's ape shit. Give me my check. Put some respect on my check.

Pay me inequity. Watch me reverse out of dicks. He got a bad bitch, bad-trip-two-two-triplet, and in the same song, Jay-Z also uses the triplet flow. Moody case when we came through, presidential with the planes too. When better get you with the rest of it.

His was a little more rapid fire without breaks. Yeah. So I feel like the Migos flow has got to be just your straight up nonstop. This is sort of like machine gun technique of triplets. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Jay-Z being of another generation, like he won't even put up with keeping that rhythm. He's got to mix it up constantly because that's just that's his style. Yeah, yeah, definitely.

And to your point, I do think it's the space of the triplets that makes it fun. I think if you're rhyming and you're going in different pockets, it can be fun, but it's less come sing along with me. You know what I'm saying? It's more like, watch me do this fantastic thing. Okay, so the Migos flow just pops up everywhere. So you got that. You also got Ariana Grande on 34 plus 35. You might think I'm crazy.

the way I've been craving If I put it quite plainly Just give me the babies So what you're doing tonight Better say doing you right Right That's all Migos right there Right so she does both sides of it

She does the triplet where she does the Dda da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da But then she drops the middle rhythm in the triplet And just gives us the sort of swung Da da da da da da da da da da da Yes the space The space is what makes it fun But you're establishing that basically

like mumble rap and the Miko's Fold that comes about critics were not unified in their fandom and said that this thing had to die and yet and yet it persisted and we're going to see that as a theme

and by persisted I mean some of the artists that came out of this era are Lil UziVirt Juice World Future Post Malone

little Yadi the list goes on that came from that culture. And these are the next generation of artists that kids are looking at. But the music didn't die. Yeah. Okay. So mumble rap didn't kill hip hop. In fact, in many ways leading up until 2018, hip hop was at its height, commercially anyway.

Yeah. So hip hop didn't die in the 2010s. No. And it also didn't die in the 2000s, even though Jay-Z, hip-hop then reigning, announced hip hop's death with the death of autotune. This is anti-autotune. Death of the ringtone. This ain't for iTunes.

This ain't for sing-al-al-al. This is anti-autotune, death of the ringtone. This ain't for iTunes. You know, you've got to be careful about putting technology in your song. It can date it real bad. Ringtones. That brought me back. Did you have any ringtones, Charlie?

Ooh, you know, I was always just too embarrassed by people who's ringtone went off in public. You know, you're like at a theater and then it's like, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, and you're like, I know it's your mom calling. Like, and you should probably change

your ringtone about that. Like, she's not happy. Right, right. I just remember not being able to get my mother's credit card to actually pay for a ringtone. So never had ringtones, but I do remember the era.

So this was a real line in the sand between real rappers, quote unquote, and rappers who use autotune. and what autotune is basically is pitch correction software. You sing into it and you can set it to a key

and it'll rapidly move your voice, your singing voice into that key. And I think most of us know the auto tune sound. It's worth pointing out that some kind of vocal tuning is done on the vast majority of sung vocals on the radio. Like vast, vast, vast majority. 99% Maybe some really raw rock songs

Or someone like Jay who's trying to Rap with a very naturalistic style They may not use it But it's even used just for like minor corrections Like you would touch up a photo and Photoshop Because there was like a fly on the lens or something Yes, you're exactly right It just gets the voice to the note quicker

And again you made a great point Of when people rap and use Autotune for their rapping voice It's because it gives it a certain polish that our ears are now trained to hear because it's been on every record since this time.

Obviously, we hear it first on Shares Believe. In the 2000s, it becomes the T-Pain effect who really sort of masters singing with Autotune put to its most extreme, and it does this very robotic digital artifacting sound. And I feel like Autotune obviously was incredibly derided at the time for being unnatural.

ways there's some actually parallels between mumble rap and autotune where there's this sort of dialogue about intelligibility, about skill and talent. If you use autotune, are you skill and talented? It's sort of the question at the moment. And yet it also gives all kinds of rappers like Jay-Z could use it because you can hear him at the beginning of Death of Autotune and singing way out of tune. He's not a singer. And Autotune does give people who are not singers the capacity to, you know, hum a melody to the degree that even Charlie X-C-X says publicly now that she can't really sing without auto tune. She needs it. It's, it's, uh, it's part of her sound. Yeah, exactly. I think a big example of this is little Wayne's lollipop. Now, Lil'Ain's Lollipop, to me, it's a phenomenon, because he's not singing well, but it's the effect, I guess, that's attractive about the song, but let's just play it. You can even hear it whirlbling around because it's trying to find what note Little Wayne is singing. Man, I'm realizing now, sorry,

This is a total sidebar, but I feel like Lil' Wayne's lollipop may be the foundational text for country music's adoption of hip-hop sounds because Lil'O'L Wayne's got so much twang, right? He says her, and you see immediately how this could translate into a Nashville-style song. Oh, I totally agree. I mean, it's New Orleans. We're talking about the South East. And yeah, that Southern drawl is all over their record. And as is the auto tune, which is the object of, you know, great derision of the moment. Yes.

And I think one significant thing about Autotune in the 2000s is that we're in an era of rap music where we're looking at like the first like rap superstars. You know, we got 50 sin and Jay-Z and Kanye West. And Kanye made a big pivot from like college dropout and late registration. These albums had sample hip-hop beats and feature rappers like Nas and the game and Talib Kuali. Really all in the style and tutelage and mentorship of Jay-Z. Yes.

Who he had produced for. So after two wildly successful albums from Kanye West, he makes a big pivot and decides his next album is going to be all singing in Autotune. Oh man, I don't want to be a Kanye apologist in any kind of way, but this really strange thing is happening to me at this moment, Brandon, which is that when I first heard this record, I didn't get it. I was on Jay-Z's side of just like, nope, Autotune's ever used,

it's not skillful, it's annoying, and now I'm hearing this record. I'm like, dang, that's a great record. After a while, me and everyone else around the world had to bow down to this new sound, you know? And yeah, those two artists, specifically, Lil Wayne and Kanye West, I think birthed the new era of rappers that if they wanted to, they could sing their own hooks

or they could sing in the middle of their verses. I think Drake is a great example of that. You certainly don't get Travis Scott without this style. Zita, sita. Exactly. Some of the biggest hip-hop stars in that contemporary moment. Yeah, Lil Yadi.

Right. Justin aside, have you ever heard Little Yaddy's Poland? Of course I've heard Poland. Okay. I still don't know how he does it, this particular vibrato of it. It's amazing.

That is cool. I've never thought about that. I've always just thought of that as Autotune, but Autotune does the opposite. Autotune... Yeah, flat. It adds it, right? Hard quantizes your pitch to one sound and instead, oh, but there is a vibrato feature in Autotune.

Yeah, I haven't used it, but I assume nobody uses that feature. That's what he's using. He's using the vibrato feature to give you that wobble. Yeah. It's different. It's different. It's kind of sick. And that is part of what is cool about Autotune is like, despite being a sound that you think

homogenizes everybody, there are people who have sort of found their own voice within this tool. Like, Goliotti doesn't sound like Kanye. Charlie X-C-X certainly doesn't. They all have their own approach to using this tool. So despite Jay-Z's attempts in the 2000s, auto-tune persist. So let's go back even further to the 1990s and the war against explicit. content against rap music with violent lyrics and all this in the 90s was a really big issue. And I found this out of my research that the first record, the first one that we know,

the rap record that used curse words, was too short. In 1985, he had a tape called Raw, Uncut, and X-rated. Raw mouth bitches who talk too much Tick-cheezing bitches who never fuck Struck the ass with a fake ass bill Raw uncut and X-rated Yep It was reported that this album

Contained 265 cuss words And the word bitch was used 128 times Oh boy And to even report that is such a 90s thing Right At this point now No one's really counting the B word

But the 90s was a time in rap where rap started to become more regional. You started to hear voices from Los Angeles and the southern states. So artists like I.T. and N.W.A. and The ghetto boys and two live crew in Florida. These artists emerge in the 90s with their own brand of rap that was really more oriented in a conversation with the cultures that they were living in. And often with a lot of cursing set against the backdrop of like Tipper Gore and all of the parents trying to add parental advisory warning labels to CDs. That's right. You got Tipper Gore to Parents Music Resource Center, the ones that invented the parental advisory stick. But yet, it's kind of hard to even fathom now how upset parents and senators

and activists were about lyrics. It's not good. It's not good for America. It's not good for other countries. It's not good for our children. It's not good for our future. Some of these artists are engaged in cultural strip mining. They are selling explicit sex and violence to younger and younger kids.

I am here to put the nation on notice that violence perpetuated against women through the music industry in the forms of gangster rap and misogynist lyrics will not be tolerated. listening to these critics now is so funny to me because I remember that as a kid growing up, the parental advisory warning labels that were created as a sort of backlash against, you know, vulgar, quote unquote music ended up being the symbol of what actually you should buy. If it had a parental advisory sticker, you're like, that's dangerous, that's good stuff. Yeah, it's so true. I think that for a lot of kids who this music was not reflecting, there was an appeal to the danger

without actually having to be in that danger. And labels found out that this was a big seller. And so, like with all trends, everybody hopped on the bandwagon. Artists that didn't start off with a gangster persona, develop a gangster persona because that is what would make the money. Yeah. I feel like the gangster rap moment also is when hip hop proves itself

to be massively commercially, viable. And it happens against this really dark backdrop, though, of the hip-hop wars, East Coast, West Coast, and the killing of Tupac and Biggie. And everything sort of boils over to the point where there are, there's a meaningful sort of even cultural backlash in the development of things like conscious hip-hop trying to find a space for how do we keep the culture going, but lose the danger because it has resulted in, you know, some real tragedy. Nonetheless, like, even going into the late 90s, you don't get the, you know, huge hits coming out of Dr. Dre and Eminem without the vulgarity and the sort of danger that's established with these gangster rappers

of the late 80s into the early 90s. And I know, kind of to your point, I feel like, despite its critics, vulgarity, danger, lack of respectability is kind of what makes hip hop so attractive to young audiences in this in this moment yeah and i think the people that had a problem with it like the generations of one step above these rappers they had a problem with the lyrics but i think they had to come to grips with the fact that these lyrics were reflecting a very real thing that was happening in america like before we address the lyrics we have to address the problems that create the art right Like, art is always imitating life.

Right. The toxic masculinity, which exists within these lyrics. Like, there are all kinds of, you know, very valid criticisms as, you know, what are we representing? Is this how we best want to, you know, articulate our romantic relationships? Or the violence. Right. In an album from the ghetto boys, you know, they'll talk about, damn, it feels good to be a gangster. Real gangsta-ass niggas don't talk much.

All you hear is the black thumbar gun blast. And real gangsta-ass niggas don't run for shit It's real gangsta ass niggas can't run fast But then like, also my mind is playing tricks on me Some might say take a chill bee But fuck that shit There's a nigger trying to kill me I'm staring at the woman on the corner

It's fucked up when your mind is playing tricks on you And it's like That song to me is about PTSD It's very clear That the character in the song Is afraid for his life based on the surroundings. And so I think in this era,

especially the early 90s, everybody got to get a view of what it was like to live in these impoverished neighborhoods all across America. So I feel like you're showing me this trend throughout this episode where it's like every single time

hip hop is supposedly on its deathbed, it's actually about to like get over a bigger hill, right? Kendrick is saying after this big rap battle, party's got to be over, 2010's mumble rap oh it's no good 2000s auto tune oh it's the death of hip hop the 90s vulgarity violence hip hop can't sustain and yet every moment that we go back it just seems to get bigger and bigger and bigger after those criticisms are wagered that's the thing with hip hop every time someone says this trend will be the death of it it manages to get over the hill even since hip hop's inception

people said that rapping and graffiti and break dancing was a fad and it wasn't going to last I mean I get that like people really thought that rapping was just like a musical technique that would be a fad that lasted a few years

everybody got in on it after the Sugar Hill gang like the Clash had a rap song Blondie had a rap song the first number one to feature a rap was actually by Blondie the song Rapture which itself is just like a silly novelty song. That should have killed the party.

Like, you know, props to everybody who, you know, worked to build the culture back from the low point, which was rapture. Dude, that was intense. That was intense. I was like, where is this story going? It goes to an alien from Mars who has a gun and he's going to shoot you dead.

It's absolutely ridiculous. All right, you've taught us some really important stuff here, though. Like, I appreciate going back in time with you. and just seeing, yeah, the constant survival of this genre. Every time hip hop persists. I don't know if you know the children's story Room on the Broom? No. Okay, so it's a children's book.

I read my kids all the time. This witch is riding on the broom. She loses her hat, and she finds a dog that finds a hat. The dog says, is there a room on the broom for me? She says, yes, come on the broom. Another animal says, is there room for me? at the end of the book, all these animals come on the broom until the broom snaps.

And so, yeah, I guess what we're getting at is that hip hop in all these iterations has added things onto itself for good and bad. And I guess we're trying to figure out if the broom is snapped yet. It's been super rewarding to go back with you through all of these different shifts in hip hop. I feel like it's capacity for constant evolution.

is part of what has kept the genre going for more than five decades. Yeah, I agree. And let's say that if hip hop is dying and it needs a resuscitation, like it's going to be the next generation that ensures its survival. It's not the big three.

It's got to be something new. What's it going to be? I'm 38. So I'm well out of my depth here. So I had to call reinforcements. Yeah. So I talked to our producer, Rihanna Cruz, about what artists we should expect to rise up and take the throne in 2024 and beyond.

Let's check that out right after the break. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness. I have a few pretty tough questions for you.

Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives, actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey.

Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on. on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. Immigration may be Donald Trump's signature issue. President Trump is now targeting predominantly democratic cities for ice raids and deportations. Dozens of protesters clashing with immigration and customs enforcement agents in Minneapolis Tuesday.

We will begin the process of returning millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came. But what we want to do in this space is talk about America and politics beyond the current president. So what do most Americans think about deportation and border security, period? I think that Americans are definitely against the kind of violent displays that we've seen in the street from ICE. When it comes to the question of deportation, the answer is more complicated. My sense is that people want border at the border. They don't like the idea of having no idea who's coming into the United States at any given time. The view on immigration from the bottom up, instead of the top down.

That's this week on America. America actually. Every Saturday in your audio and video feeds. Brandon and Rihanna here switched on pop style gods. Rihanna, I have a big issue. I'm feeling kind of old. When it comes to like new rap music, I'm kind of lost. Yeah. Who's standing out? Who's different? Who's dope right now? I have no idea. But I trust your ears. I trust your analysis.

To tell me who are hip hop's biggest influencers in this generation? I mean, I feel like you have the like elder statesman of the 2010s. So Kendrick, Drake, I'd even put like Travis Scott in that three. After that, the artists that are really influential presently in the 2020s are Playboy Cardi, low Uzivert, Tyler the Creator. Because I think all three of them are responsible for specific subgenres in like the underground hip hop that we see. percolating. Okay, so let's start with Playboy Cardi, who I'm most confused about because I maybe have heard him on some features, but I've never really gotten into his music. So what's the

song that's representative of the style and how people are trying to emulate that? Yeah, I mean, Playboy Cardi's career is interesting because his first few records had really big hits on them that defined his artistry. Like, I'm thinking of like magnolia. But I think like the record that really cemented his influence was a whole lot of red. So like on Whole Lot of Red, you see Playboy Cardi kind of pilot this new style of hip hop that has come to define, I think like the first half of the 2020s, which is the this like rage style music.

So like on a song like Rockstar made, which opens the album, you get like clipping 808s, you know what I mean? Like it's like kind of shrill. I feel like maybe to somebody like you would be like, why do people listen to this? Never too much. Never too much. Never too much. That kind of distorted bass I was familiar with from SoundCloud.

I was like, oh, these. kids just like don't have the proper equipment so it sounds like this and then it became like an aesthetic of style right which is kind of punk like i like i like i think the appeal of this album is that to like hip hop fans younger hip hop fans who are like maybe not as familiar with like classic punk styles or like even maybe even miss the boat on pop punk like this to them is the punk version of hip hop and i think that's why it appeals because it doesn't say sound clean. It sounds messy. It sounds like he just kind

got in the studio and started tearing shit up. You know what I mean? Like it don't make much sense, but I think that's why people really like it. Let's hear rock star made. Rush stop, Rush stop. Rush stop. What did he

just say? I'm not really sure. I like it. Yeah. And I just really don't want to sound old. So I'm not even going to I'm not even going to continue that thread. Brandon, you just need to listen to us some more. And you'll understand the words. You just got to listen to it.

Do you know the words? No. But that's okay. I feel like I don't need to know the words. You know? Because I feel like maybe this is like part of the generational gap is that like when I listen to hip hop, right? I consider myself, I think, well versed in like classic hip hop, you know, like Illmatic, one of my favorite albums of all time. Right, right.

But I think that newer hip-hop is less concerned with lyrics and delivering bars as it is with developing a richer production and sound. You know, it's very production focused. And, like, that's how you get into the whole mumble rap thing, where it's, like, who really cares what these rappers are saying? Because it captures, like, capital V vibes. You know what I mean? And, like, that's what I think Playboy Cardi does really well on whole lot. Red and his general output is that like he makes people care about the aesthetic a lot more than actually what he's saying because like if you really look at what he's saying it's like

kind of nonsense yeah you know and not every artist should have the responsibility of saying anything right like I don't want to listen to Playboy Cardi and like hear him deliver bars that's not what I come to him for I come to him for this aesthetic you know like he's doing the whole vampire thing He's doing the whole punk rage thing. And, like, that's what people really connect with, you know? Like, my brother's younger than me, right? Like, my brother just turned 21. And his favorite artist of all time is Playboy Cardi.

He is very into hip-hop. And he's, like, an extreme hip-hop fan. He came with me to Rolling Loud. But, like, he doesn't really connect with somebody like Post Malone. Or even artists older than that. You know what I mean? Like, it's like, he doesn't really listen to Wu-Tang. Right, exactly.

Like, going all the way back to Wu-Tang doesn't really care. Even future doesn't really care. Wow. He's like really tapped into like Playboy Cardi and all the little spons that have come off of Playboy Cardi because he is so great at harnessing that aesthetic that I think like Gen Z listeners connect with. They connect with vibes first and then whatever they're saying second when it comes to hip-hop. Nice. Or even third, right? Because it's like, don't be.

Right. Vibing on it correctly. Right. And just for my own self, like, the definition of vibing is just, like, how you're interacting with the beat, how your energy is coming across, how you're representing yourself. Is it a good time? Because even here, I know it's not a sad song. Right. I know it's not, you know, without hearing the lyrics, I know it's like a fun party record. So to your point, I don't need to know the lyrics to, like, get the song. Right. That's crazy. That's dope. No, it's cool. And I think that's what really, I think, defines this new wave of, like, hip-hop's top artists, you know? Because it's like, Playboy Cardi, really, like, his whole thing is that, like, you don't know what the fuck he's saying. Like... That's his thing. That's his thing, you know? And people really like that because they can look at something that Playboy Cardi does and be like, oh, like, I know I'm in it because it's Playboy Cardi. You know what I mean? And his aesthetic, like, tops all. Okay, so we got Playboy Cardi as one of hip hop's new influencers. Next on the list is Lil UziVirt.

Rihanna, what's your favorite song from Uzi? Okay, one of my favorite hip-hop songs of the past decade is probably New Patic. New Patic on my wrist, white dominant of them shit pink. Got going to go get a mink. New finger rings it like I said. Oozzie as well is somebody of that caliber, where when people listen to Little UziVert, I listen because the first. Production's really nice.

Mm. Off of pink tape, I really like suicide doors. I whip in Lisiagga straight out the show room. I put spikes out in my head just like I'm going to cool. She looked at me in my eyes, let me to old you. Now I'm aware of, I'm aware of Uzi Ver. Mm-hmm. I feel like for a while, like late 20 teens.

Exotor Life. And that, like, popped off. You know, his top track on Spotify is this feature on Juice World, Lucid Dreams. Yes. I genuinely think also that if Juice World did not die, he would be on that Playboy Cardi level of influence. You know, it would be Cardi, Uzi, Juice World. Wow. Rest in peace.

Yeah. I feel the same way about Lil Peep too, because Little Peep's a favorite of mine. And I'm like, his influence would be, I think, a lot more pronounced. Yeah. If he had not died at 21. Okay, this is really cool. I think from what we heard from Playboy Cardi, which had more like hardcore punk, rage aesthetic,

this is more emo pop punk in its approach. Right. And something I'm seeing is that they're addressing mental health and drug usage in a way that just wasn't being addressed in hip hop in previous generations. It's also extremely sad that we've lost so many artists to drug abuse and depression. I do think the tide might be shifting a little bit. And I think that's in part due to artists' like future, right? I think of this line that he has on like that, right, where he's like,

all my hoes do shrooms, all my hoes do coke. Which is so different than like what he was doing on like DS2 where he's like, you know, I'm about like lean and all that shit. Yeah. I've been like looking to future as like, okay, like what is this man up to in terms of like furthering drug culture and hip hop? And like when he said on like that, he was like, all my host do shrooms. I was like, oh, okay, we're pivoted. Slice shit.

Yeah, yeah. All right. So we've got Uzi. We've got Playboy Cardi. to Tyler the creator. That was sticky off. That was sticky off of Tyler's chromocopia. I think something that Tyler does that I think we're going to see in this next generation of hip hop is being the sole creator of your work. Tyler writes, composes, arranges, produces all of his music. And I think that's what makes his music, in part, so compelling, is that it's unequivocally his vision. You know, like, it's solely Tyler that is making these tracks and we hear that. And that's why it sounds so unique. And as we're in this era where everybody can open up beat stars and download a beat, like everybody can spend a half hour.

on FL Studio making something so basic and simple. Or just downloaded it on YouTube, type beat. No, exactly, exactly. And I think we're going to see a lot of hip-hop artists lean into this like, I am the sole architect of my artistry, sensibility, because it's so successful with people like Tyler. And I think part of what Tyler is doing is making music that is so different than anything else out there that it is compelling.

I love that. And I would love to see that. I think, you know, coming up, when I was making music, I was inspired by the Farrils and Kanye's and people that like made the beats and rap. Like that was always attractive to me because I had a feeling I could do both. But it's harder to do. Yeah. Well, I think like Tyler's experience in part comes from his time in odd future, right? the rap group that he started on, because that was a very collaborative environment. You know, and you're working with a lot of artists who have their own careers like Steve Lacey,

like Sid, and you're kind of developing a skill set through your interactions with other people. And frankly, I don't really know if that's something that we're going to see for a while because I think hip-hop is very fragmented, you know, where you're not really getting these collectives. I think the last one was Brockhampton, you know, from the 2010s. Like, I think there's this solitary nature of hip-hop these days where because everything is online, because you can collaborate with people never even meeting them in person, I think developing that skill set is a little bit more difficult. All right, so we got Rihanna's top three people to influence.

the next generation of hip hop. What are you listening to right now? So somebody who I really like right now, probably my favorite hip hop artist at the moment, is Tisa Korean. You got to play, let me hear you scream. One, hit the club, two, hit your bitch. Three, I get silly.

Four, now be rich. Five, got some six. I'm the sheep. A made away. La her pussy on my leash. That's hard. Yeah. I think this is the first beat where somebody just went up the scale.

He just went, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, bye, and then just stirred it over. Yeah. That's hard. I like Tisa because it's like, what if the most influential sound in the world was still in 2024, Kanye 808 and Heartbreak or Travis Porter? I like that. Yeah. It's like imagine your own universe and then like proceed.

Right. So we got teaser Korean. Anybody else? Well, I think something interesting that I'm listening to that I'm hearing percolate is this kind of style of hip-hop that is happening not in America. So like I've been listening lately to a lot of hip-hop happening in South America. And, you know, Brazilian hip hop right now is having a moment. But I think lately, specifically, I've been listening to this artist Stiffy,

who is based in Argentina. But he is doing something with his friends that he is calling, like, Musica Dos, like Music Two, you know? It's like so far removed from what we know his current hip-hop. Him and his cohort of like Argentinian rappers are doing something so interesting. This is the exact This is the exact hip-hop that connects with my heart. Like DJ drops and just like bombs and like all that is of the culture, big culture.

All right, let's keep playing it. Let's see where Stiffy is going here. So that's Cough Cough by Stiffy. DJ Smokey and another artist August Fortnite 2008 Full name. Come on, come on. You haven't missed. You haven't missed.

You can play this back to back with the Travis Porter. So it's like something about the turn of hip hop happening right now takes us back to dancing, social, in a group in the real world. You know what I'm saying? So true. There was a period where everything was kind of like cerebral and moody and dark. and I will be happy to see that shift into we're back outside and having fun together.

Right, right. I think that's for two separate reasons. And I think one reason why everything is like party forward is because we're coming out of COVID, right? People want more communal spaces, especially for hip-hop, which I think thrives in a group concert setting. Like I think that's why we're seeing a lot of music that's very communal.

You know, like designed to be experienced in a party space. And I also think another element going back to Playboy Cardi is that like everything is like vibe forward. You know, like you can't really make a track that's cerebral and introspective. Lyrically dense. Right, exactly. Like you can't do like lyrical, spiritual, miracle shit and have it be aesthetically pleasing. Yeah. You know?

That's a hard line of tread. Right. And like even Tyler is lyric forward, I think often. but also has beats that are their own entity where like it kind of offsets his lyrical prowess, you know? Because he can write really good lyrics and he can sing and he can do all of that and have his tracks be vocal forward. But also he has beats, you know?

And it's like someone like me who listens basically only to production. I could listen to a title track and be like, I don't know what he's talking about. And frankly, I don't care because the beat is so good. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I think to sum it up this next generation, and it's probably been happening for a while,

is moving towards feeling more than anything, you know, like making somebody feel something. And that doesn't necessarily have to be by what you say. Somebody like Tyler's really melody driven and wants to take you different places with his production. And then if you glean something like after like the fourth or fifth listen, then like dope. But also if you just enjoy the fact that he added some chords after like 40 seconds, then that's dope too.

Right. So this is all very enlightening. I'm excited for my drive back to Long Beach to slap all these artists. Rihanna, always a pleasure talking to you. You straightened me out today. I was really thinking there was no hope for me. And you gave me hope to like refresh my ears and really. really take a second and consider the vibe over everything.

I'm glad I could help. I think like an argument that I hear a lot from old heads, right, is that like all hip hop sucks now and, you know, all hip hop sounds the same. And I think that can apply really to like any genre of music. And I think truly the way to combat that is just to listen, you know, and have open ears and like really, dig into what artists in the underground they're doing.

Thanks, free. Of course. This is some really cool stuff. Like some sounds that are pointing towards things that are unexpected to me. I got to say one thing, though. Where are the ladies at? Yeah. It really should be mentioned that women in hip hop since its inception have been breaking records and setting trends.

even in 2023 and 2024, it's been the ladies who have really dominated. Yeah, I feel like in some ways Kendrick got us on the wrong path. Like, the whole big three thing is sort of like set the framing of this conversation

towards the like the hyper-masculine side of hip-hop and yet I feel like we've been doing stories on the way that women have to carve out their own lane and there's been so many good things happening the last couple years. It goes without saying if you want hip hop to party, melody-driven,

it's aggressive still, and it's fun. You're not going to the guys anymore. Yeah, we're not going to the guys. Guys are kind of emo and slow and weird. The girls, Glorilla, you got Lotto, you got Magdalestallian, you got Dochi, phenomenal mixtape.

The list goes on and on. I can go on for days. I feel like these artists could have disqualified Kendrick's claims from the very beginning, and perhaps is a great invitation to have you back again on Mike to present some more of what's happening in your ears real soon. We'll love to.

Thanks for bringing me this story, Brandon. It's been fun. Thank you, man. Anytime. Switched on Pop is produced this week by Brandy McFarland, in addition to Rianna Cruz, also engineered by Brandon McFarland, edited by Art Chung, illustrations by Arras Gottlieb. Remember of the Vox Media Podcast Network

and a production of Vulture, which is part of New York Magazine. You can subscribe at nymag.com, You can find all of our stuff on social media at SwitchDon Pop. We'll be back again next Tuesday with another episode. And until then, thanks for listening. Thanks for listening. Attention Spotify. Has arrived on the new Good Girl Jasmine Absolute of Caroline Herrera.

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