Why do Hip Hop artists feel the need to retire? Does this make any sense? The whole idea of “retirement” from being a musician is quite unfathomable. Music, especially Hip Hop, is an art you don’t retire from. As a Hip Hop artist, you can’t retire because what you do is your life rather than a job.  The late great artists of the past such as Biggie, Tupac, Big Pun, and Big L never had the need to “retire” from Hip Hop because they lived it. This is who they were. The great Michael Jackson would have never even had  this thought going through his mind because he, like many great artists, was born with such a great talent that he had to share it with the world. Music was his life.  And if he had never passed away, he would still be making music.

      This is what separates the real from the fake. The steady decline in sales has caused many artists to panic which causes them to make some rash decisions based on emotion rather than actually thinking about the repercussions and how they are actually hurting themselves along with the art of music in general. These artists no longer rely on pure talent to sell themselves, but make excuses when they are not selling records. In my opinion, an artist’s success should not solely be based upon how many copies they sold, but also the quality, content, conistency, and longevity of their work. I don’t know if artists these days, feel its necessary to “retire” in order to boost sales. I don’t know what it is, but whatever it is, they need to stop. You are not fooling anyone.

      Longevity in the Hip Hop game is almost extinct because you have a lot of artists who get signed to make music, really have no talent at all, but yet they are being paid so much money to make a silly dance song while artists who put their heart and soul into their music are being overlooked. This is a big problem we have today. Everyone wants to  be a rapper these days  simply because they see it’s the easy way to make money. Which is what it seems. Nowadays, anyone can make a dumb song and it becomes a hit. People embrace these artists who have no talent and give them recognition they don’t deserve. Deep down, these artists are just trying to make a quick buck off of a song and don’t care about the fans nor about the art itself. There are only a few artists who still fit the mold of staying true to the game, and most of them are olds school artists who never leave the game, but are always reinventing themselves. Continue reading »