S. Samuel
Houston rap veteran Bun B and Harlem's A$AP Rocky are the latest hip-hop artists to offer a take on Trinidad James ruffling feathers by saying the New York rap scene has been taken over by Atlanta this week.
In Bun and A$AP’s opinion, rap started in the Big Apple and has since evolved to become a global phenomenon.
“Hip-hop and the actual art of rapping started here in New York, so if you’re an MC by due product you’re already trying to be like New York. So it don’t make no sense for nobody to act like New York trying to be like them,” he reasoned. No one is discounting the South’s influence on NY rap. Rocky often credits Texas’ DJ Screw and Bun’s UGK as chief influences; he also regularly acknowledges Midwest rap group Bone Thugs N Harmony as well as New York’s Dipset. “Everybody got its time, but people don’t wanna enjoy that until it’s gone,” he said of rap’s regional trends. (MTV)
Bun also noted how Southern influence has seeped into the New York rap scene.
Bun has another theory; he sees hip-hop culture as a sort of boomerang: once you throw your art into the world it will travel, but may comeback in a different form. “Hip-hop left New York in the late ’70s, early ’80s and went out to the world and I came back. I threw hip-hop out into the world in 1992 and he came back,” he said pointing to Rocky, drawing a parallel to his debut album with Bun B Too Hard to Swallow in 1992 and A$AP’s current reign. “Once you give it to the world, when it comes back to you, you can’t be mad at how it comes back to you because you sent it out there in the first place,” Bun continued. (MTV)
Picking up where he left off earlier in the week, James has unleashed some fury toward haters with his new “L.I.A.A.R.S” track.
Tonight, he shared “L.I.A.A.R.$,” which stands for “Lame$ is Alway$ Acting Real…..$ure,” on Atlanta’s Streetz 94.5, in which he defended his words and took a few additional shots. “I know I sound crazy,” the track begins, before launching into a discussion about Hot 97’s Peter Rosenberg (“Rosenberg tried me/Almost hit him in the sh*t/God said ‘spare him’ now we best of friends”), taking shots at Power 105’s Charlamagne tha God (“Ain’t no god for Charlamagne if he try me again”) and generally offering some words of advice for anyone in the music industry: “Ain’t no love for f*ck n*ggas that’s acting like my friends /Just because I dap you, that don’t mean we friends /Never hold your tongue, get it off your chest /’Cause if you hold your tongue you gon’ get depressed” (Complex)
During his appearance at Converse Rubber Tracks ini New York Tuesday night (November 12), Trinidad spoke on Atlanta taking over the Big Apple.
“I remember when New York ran this sh*t, dog. When Dipset was f*ckin’ turned the f*ck up. Oh my God. I gotta wear my bandana on tilt like Juelz. What the f*ck happened, dog? What happened? I remember when New York rap was the sh*t. And us in the South, us bammas, we was like ‘what the f*ck’ and we just did our own thing. But now we run y’all musically. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. That’s crazy, my n*gga. That’s crazy. I’m not trying to start nothing, but if you want to do something we can do something cause I don’t give a f*ck. I looked up to New York music. And now every n*gga that’s really poppin’ out of New York, you might as well tell they from Atlanta. ‘He from Atlanta. He from Atlanta. He from Atlanta.’ I’m just putting it out there. Y’all got more bloggers–y’all got n*ggas interviewing more popular than n*ggas that’s rapping.” (Woogie 2 Woogie)
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