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Bobby Davis's Corner
Letters to Bobby Davis
New York Emceeing Is Dead
By: Phoenix Jinx
All sects of rap music, should, and must pay homage to the
birthplace of Hip-hop. No one could ever question the importance of New York,
relative to its relevance in the history of rap music. But today, New York's
music scene feels like watching your favorite boxer that has gone past his
prime, with all the hate, especially being chucked towards southern rappers and
southern rap styles, with all the beefs with each other, all the retirements,
with all the excuses why they don’t run the radio anymore, and reasons why they
can't market the boom-bap, its seems as if the chink in its armor that the west
coast exposed in the early '90's, has become a gaping hole...New York pull your
skirt up.
I once heard Fat Joe, describe New York as the "Jerusalem of Hip-hop music",
while I can dig that, and to continue with that analogy…, as a Christian, we
know that the Israelites [New York artist] lost their way when their interests,
in their own minds, superceded the interests of God's Law. Now, we all can
agree, at least all of us that were living during the infancy of Hip-hop, that
there are certain rules that govern a tranquil nature of Hip-hop, especially
when it relates to battles with other emcees, biting another emcee’s or crew’s
style, and having respect for your fellow artist…these issues were always
regulated, if only indirectly, by the top dog, which for most of our music’s
history, was the King of New York.
Though, I am from the South, V-A specifically, I was exposed to rap music at its
birth, I was blessed enough to have neighbors that moved down to Virginia from
the Boogie-down, and were into all the crafts of Hip-hop, but especially
emceeing, and DJ-ing (they were known as the Bronx Boogie Crew) and I have been
up on everything and everybody fresh in NY since 1981. I never went to one (I
was way too young), but I was getting first hand reports from the “Fresh
Fest’s”, I was getting the dopest tapes, at 10 and 11 I was learning how to cut
and scratch records (my neighbors were DJ’s), I had my first battle when me and
my man “A”(their younger brother) sucker punched the Bronx Boogie Crew with a
diss rap at their cook-out(they were impressed, but still ate us up), and I
always had the newest vinyl, because one of their parents were cousins with DJ
Cowboy.
So, though I’m from the Dirty, it breaks my heart to see the state NY is in, it
broke my heart that Jay-Z didn’t get at Cam (though I loved the fact that Cam
kept it Hip-hop, and challenged Hov…Dipset!), it breaks my heart to see New York
artist try and make “that single” as opposed to sticking to the boom-bap, it
breaks my heart to hear artist like Saigon, and Ghostface (who I dig) talk
boo-boo about the South, it breaks my heart to feel the hate shown to southern
artist by their northern counterparts especially when we have never had anything
but love, respect, and admiration for New York rap artists, and particularly New
York’s music scene.
I hope to God that New Yorkers learn how to market the boom-bap, because I would
love to see Papoose make it, commercially. New Yorker artist must be able to
humble themselves (which is a job in itself) enough to realize that they aren’t
the top dog anymore, and they have to conduct their business from that
perspective. N-Y will never fully regain its prominence within the rap
community, mostly because of how they have allowed corporations to mold our
music commercially during their watch. In essence “The Kings of New York” have
failed the rap music community by allowing these corporations to misconstrue the
purpose of our music. On top of all of that, up and coming artists from the
south, such as Virginia’s FRONTLINE, Easy Street International, and Barnes are
no longer viewing New York’s music with that “wide-eyed” admiration that I once
had for those artist “up top”, they are going for the neck, and are leading a
renaissance of artists that simply could care less about NY’s rich rap history,
its all about right now, and with artist like these aiming for you head, it wont
be long until that infamous New York swagger, turns into a limp. New York
Emceeing is Dead.
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