Hip hop is in a transitional period that has a lot of rap purists angry at newer artists.

Hip hop is hard to get right and trying to please everyone is a futile task since everyone enjoys a unique preference. Some people enjoy trap music while others insist that the last great rappers were Tupac and Biggie; and that hip hop died with them. While the Tupac/Biggie feud fueled the popularity in hip hop, their deaths did not end it. While the death of Tupac was an end of an era, it let other rappers know that nobody was untouchable. Out of the ashes of Tupac and Biggie brought the resurgence of the former member of N.W.A., Dr. Dre, who had just signed a new artist to Interscope Records; a white artist. That artist, Eminem, got an unprecedented amount of pushback for being white in a predominantly black industry, but he and Dr. Dre persisted and released an album that changed the view of rappers. Eminem went on to sell many more albums, showing the world that race did not matter and as long as you have something to say, you can say it through hip hop.

The extraneous state of race in regards to hip pop led to what many referred to as the decline of hip hop and the rise of soundcloud rap. Soundcloud rap is named after the music sharing platform SoundCloud, on which many artists got their start. Soundcloud rap is characterized by simplistic beats and uncomplicated lyrics dealing with opulent amounts of money and recreational drug abuse. While soundcloud rap is a far cry from the days of the politically conscious gangster rap of Tupac and N.W.A., or the stories of poverty from Eminem, it does not delegitmize the popularity of SoundCloud rap as a whole.

Many rap purists do not like the new sound of current hip hop music, calling it lazy and pointless, while others are upset at the glorification of drug abuse. While many current artists call the old guard “haters,” one artist, Lil Xan, expressed the opinion of many new artists by declaring Tupac’s music “boring,” to the anger of many other, more original music artists.

Whether you love it or hate it, SoundCloud rap is here to stay for as long as it wants, but it shouldn’t matter people like what they like so let’s all try to be a little nicer to each other.