I have always been into rap culture ever since I was a youngin, I remember being 7 years old and rapping in the mirror like a dam fool to Daddy Y Yankee in the mornings before going to school. The first album I ever bought was "Barrio Fino" so I was a pretty die hard fan along with my girl cousin lmaoo. Ever since then I became infatuated with rap and the crazy personas that came along with it, to me they were like super heroes. They were crazy, outlandish, and most importantly they were confident, that confidence to put yourself out there in front of a large group of strangers is what I really admire to this day. To me rappers are people who are not afraid to be themselves and just create, act however they wish without caring what people think. They believe in themselves so much to the point that they end up creating history. So anyways, I got into the rap game during that down south shit era, where if your song didn't have a dance to accompany it, it wasn't shit. The rappers I first came to know about where people like Young Joc, Trick Daddy, Mike Jones, Three 6 Mafia, Dj Unk, Soulja Boy, 50 Cent, T.i, Lil Scrappy, basically mid 2000s is when I really got into rap. I basically got all my music from whatever B.E.T would play on their shows like 106 and Park. So, I didn't really know about the dope shit mostly just whatever was hot at the time.
Eventually after listening to all that party shit like Hurricane Chris, I came across a rapper by the name of Lil Wayne. I believe I first heard him on "Go DJ" and I was so amazed by his rapping because prior to him I was listening to "trash lyricists" then I hear Weezy with the crazy flows and metaphors and my mind was blown. I believed him, as I'm sure many kids did at that time, when he proclaimed he was the greatest rapper alive. There were a couple years where he was single handedly running the rap game, this man was so hot that every single feature I anticipated with excitement and fiend over, because he could never do any wrong, never had a wack verse ever. I remember being in 6th grade and me and my friend Tony would recite "Stunnin Like My Daddy" (name sound corny now lmao) word for word in the classroom. I would say Wayne's part and he would do Birdman then we would switch it up. To this day his verse on "We Taking Over" is fucking amazing and " I get them goosebumps everytimeeeee".
Then the internet came around or should I say it became cheap enough for my family to actually afford it, and that's when I really got into all sorts of more amazing artists. I was during those LimeWire, Napster, and FrostWire days that I would discover Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Pharrell, Jay- Z, Nas, Twista, all sorts of crazy lyricist which is what I really got into at the time. I remember the day I saw a couple eminem tracks on Limewire and I was like fuck it lets check them out, because before I had heard him hear and there but I never really paid him any attention. So when I pressed play on, I beleive "Criminal", my mind was immediately blown away yet again. The flow and the way he was flipping syllables around, bending words together, and the fucking subject matter was like my virgin ears getting raped to the lyrical madness. I instantly began to download as many Em tracks I could find and became addicted or should I say became a "Stan" for like a month straight I only listened to Eminem. Anyways, I had another phase during 7th grade summer where all I listened to was Old School Rap, N.W.A, Snoop, Tupac, Biggie Smalls, Big L, and other gangsta shit. It was mostly thanks to GTA San Andreas, that I was introduced to old school rap, which I think a lot of the young kids should play just so they are able to appreciate rap history and rap greats like Tupac and Biggie, not only that but the game is still fun af to play, but that discussion is for another time.
Move forward in time and we get the new class, bring in Drake and the whole Young Money era, anoter amazing time in my teenage years, besides the lame ass YOLO shit everyone in school would say ha-ha. I recall first hearing Drake on the radio with "Best I Ever Had" I was working a summer job helping my uncle cut lawns, and I instantly was hooked by the catchyness and the smoothness of it. It was unlike anything I had ever heard in my life, it was too fresh, so I went home and googled it and I see a name "Drake" and I was like okay but who is the other person feature on this? I kept looking around the web and the only name that would come up was Drake so I was confused a shit until I realized that it was him doing the singing AND the rapping. That was unheard of a the time a rapper who could sing like that amazing. Around that Dj Khaled started becoming more famous too and more annoying, Rick Ross was doing his thing, and Kanye West was showing the world why he is top 5 DOA.
TO BE CONTINUED....................