Old to the New?

Tonight VH1 is airing their Hip Hop Honors show taped a couple of weekends back.
Being rightfully recognized for their contributions to hip-hop are luminaries like Afrika Bambaataa, Rakim and MC Lyte (Da Brat doing Lyte).

But while the achievements of the past of these artists can’t be denied, what happens when they try to drop new material? Are we so willing to be so reverential?

In the past couple of months Toronto was blessed with a number of concerts from hip-hop legends. The period recently ended with a show from KRS-One but A Tribe Called Quest kicked it off passing through on their NBA 2K7 tour with a sold-out show. Tribe stuck to strictly playing their classic tracks off their five albums during the show. And perhaps concerned about tarnishing their legacy, they aren't planning to record together again anytime soon.


During the same week Ian Andre Espinet put it down with his infamous Amnesia jam at Toronto’s Guvernment nightclub. The party is well known for bringing in surprise ‘old-school’ guests. This particular night was no exception. Chubb Rock was the only officially announced guest performer, but when the night was done, a rubber-limbed Greg Nice, the laid-back Special Ed and the energetic MC Lyte had hit the stage.

As the headliner, Lyte ran through a bunch of her classic tracks, but when her set was over and she had left the stage, her DJ dropped the needle on her dope DJ Premier produced “Wonder Years” track that emerged recently. Along with a few others I was left wondering why she didn’t perform the track during her show.

And then two days later, a week after ATCQ had come through town, Rakim came through the T-dot with Kid Capri in tow. Rakim did everything that everyone expected of him (and nicely subbed in Kid Capri’s name any time Eric B was mentioned in his rhymes) but he did drop a new track called “It’s Nothing” that he performs on the VH1 Hip Hop Honors show (sneak peek). For his encore he did drop some freestyles and lyrics that may or may not be on a rumoured new record The Seventh Seal. But how well will his new material go over in the long run?

People at the concert got hyped to “It’s Nothing” not so much because they thought the track was ridiculously dope, but more for the fact that it didn’t suck like they thought it would. The trepidation any hip-hop fan feels in concert when an ‘old school’/veteran MC announces he’s gonna drop some new ish, was successfully alleviated.

Sure, some new music from ‘old school’ artists is pretty bad, but there are definite instances, them when this is not the case. Yet even if they drop new music that’s good, there’s still no guarantee that they’ll be embraced by an increasingly fickle hip-hop audience and the 4,080 other barriers they have to face.

Of course this isn’t specific to the hip-hop genre, but I can’t think of another genre that kicks its artists to the curb quicker than hip-hop, save for teen pop. It’s great that shows like the Hip Hop Honors exist, but it’s also kinda sad that artists who can still contribute to the art form have to rely on their early catalog to get any love at all.