So, this stupid-ass thread where old vets and new "vets" come to find other members of their respective cliques and then jack each other off is (somehow) still ongoing - albeit in a zombie-like, shambling state. Today, with this blog entry, I'm going to offer a central thesis of discussion to wrap up the various arguments and figure out what the core point of disagreement is; but, first, I'm going to discuss some of the things that each side has said about the other.
The main criticism leveled against the old heads by the new heads is that their grasp of the fundamentals was bad. DaDDiO slanted his rhymes; reEFer spent too much time scheming and not enough time punching; Rican had god-awful wordplay; etc. Disregarding for a moment the hypocrisy of some of these statements if thought of as representing the group of new heads as a whole (e.g. if the "us" group includes Dissizit, you can't accuse the "them" group, which includes Rican, of using bad wordplay, without having made use of severe tu quoque.), I think that the fact that the new heads make a huge point of this while the old heads ignore it and say that the "bigger picture" of their skill/accomplishments overrides their deficiencies leads naturally to the following conclusion:
New heads and old heads have differing opinions about the skill of the old heads because the two groups' understanding of how battle rap "should" be done is fundamentally different.
Understand that. It's an important point - in fact, it is the main point of this essay.
I think that my defense of this position works best in a sort of Q&A format, so that's what I'm going to use for the remainder of this.
Q: When you say that the two groups have a different understanding of how battle rap should be done, what do you mean? How does their understanding differ?
A: It differs in that the two groups are split on which one of two factors of battle rap is the more important: the entertainment factor or the skill factor. The old heads place more value on entertainment; the new heads more on skill. One could also phrase this as saying that the old heads are more "artistic" or "intuitive," while the new heads are more "scientific" or "methodical." More practically, it makes sense to say that the new heads are more grounded in, and place more emphasis on the use of, "rules" for how battle rap should be written, while the old heads thought of these rules as being more flexible - general guidelines and not concrete commandments - and breakable if it increases the enjoyment that the audience derives from reading the verse.
Q: Why is this?
A: As battle rap continues to evolve, the best people will lead the way for its development. The best people will use their "technical" skill (i.e. scheming, complex punches) to demonstrate their superiority, but they won't make gigantic leaps that would put them completely above their audience. This has led us from the early traditions of flyting, to freestyle battles in urban areas, to simple multis and jabs, all the way up to the highly technical form of battle rap used today.
The increasing emphasis put on complexity and precision - i.e. making sure punches are well-thought-out, wordplays work both ways, and schemes are intricate and not slanted - is the result of every generation of leading battlers putting more emphasis on those aspects than the last one, just to show off. Other people then try to emulate them, leading to an overall increase in technical skill at the expense of "art."
Q: Why hasn't it always been that way since the beginning?
Good question. This development has always been around - even the internet text battles on GoldMic a decade ago, while less sophisticated than the battles of today, were still a huge step up in complexity from the very earliest days of battle rap, where two competitors would meet up on the street and throw freestyled insults at each other. That gradually developed into the style of battling we see today.
It takes more effort and talent to innovate than to copy. If you go to college and pursue a degree in mathematics, you might complete your studies in a few years. In the exams you have to pass to earn this degree, you might very well have to put your skills to use solving very complicated problems. However, those things that you learn while obtaining that degree took millenia for man's greatest intellects to develop. Does that mean that the mathematicians of the past were stupid? Of course not! It just means that they had less to build off of than today's mathematicians, and it's far easier to learn and use a mathematical theorem than to invent a mathematical theorem.
To make another analogy, consider for a moment that Isaac Newton did not come up with the theory of relativity. Albert Einstein did. Does that mean Isaac Newton was less intelligent or capable than Einstein? No; if anything, Newton was probably the much more intelligent and capable of the two! However, because Newton and Einstein were separated by a large span of time, Einstein had far more knowledge to work from than Newton did. Newton's great leaps were in his laws of motion, gravity, and invention of calculus; while any first-year undergraduate in a physics course would become familiar with all of these things, it took a great effort from one of history's greatest minds to invent them. Does that mean people back then were less intelligent? Of course not; if that same physics undergraduate were born in prehistoric times, they more likely than not never would have made any achievements at all.
The point of the above rambling is this: The battle rap we know today could not have been developed by one or a few person(s) over a short span of time. Rather, many people, over a long period, had to contribute their unique skills and insights for it to result. The middleweights and heavyweights of today would likely be no more "scientific" than those of yesteryear if they entered the scene during that time; similarly, if old greats had not started then but now, the current, methodical form of battle rap would have become theirs.
Q: Is this a good or bad thing?
No comment. Naturally, the answers you get will probably vary mostly depending on what timeframe the answerer started in, or was most active in. People tend to like and defend what they were familiarized with first.
Q: Can you give me an example of this?
DeNiro B Milk. Weird multies, huge lack of punches, but he told intricate, intriguing, and often hilarious stories. He broke all of the "rules" that you hear so much about, but the rules weren't as set in stone then; and, in any case, nobody gave a fuck. He was unique and entertaining, so he became a legend. But if someone else doing the exact same thing appeared today, that person probably wouldn't do too well in the eyes of the public.
~~~
I leave all of the above statements and comments to the criticism of those more knowledgeable about the history of the site than myself. This essay is merely intended to be a collection of some of my thoughts on the matter, and is hardly exhaustive.
Thanks for reading. |
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