"Your life is played out/Like Kwame and them fuckin' polka dots..."
Believe it: Hip-hop, like any form of popular culture, is inundated with trends. Purists might get aggy about the genre's willingness to hop around after the latest "latest thing." But hey, change is healthy! And new styles are what keeps the music, the community, the whole world, "fresh."
Hip-hop has many trendsetters, the people who (inadvertently or otherwise) shift its look, sound, and content in different directions. From high school YouTube artists to top-of-the-food-chain aesthetes like Kanye West, the various nodes of #influence range far and wide. But it's important to remember, they wouldn't be anything without people who want to bite—the very people who grant influential artists their status as influencers. Mimicry being the sincerest form of flattery, of course.
Just because something catches on, though, doesn't mean it should have. Here, we'll take a look at the trends that have worn out their welcome, the trends that really make hip-hop fans look like jerks, and the trends that are just...pointless. Here are 10 Trends We Wish Hip-Hop Didn't Popularize.
Written by Insanul Ahmed (@Incilin) & David Drake (@somanyshrimp)
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The "Free [Anyone]" movement.
Face tattoos.
Back when Mike Tyson first got his face tattooed, we didn't think it would actually catch on. Boy were we wrong. The trend has taken rap by storm the last few years with guys like Lil Wayne, Birdman, Yung LA, Game, and Gucci Mane getting all sorts of stuff drawn on their face. Permanently. In most cases, we preferred the way they looked before. Hey young world, treat face tats like drugs and just say no. Like a real responsible adult, get a tramp stamp instead!
"Making it rain."
Spinners.
No disrespect to Three 6 Mafia and their awesome song "Ridin' Spinners," but spinners are stupid. They have no practical value whatsoever and they make cars looks ridiculous. And they got buried in a shallow grave when Chris Rock did a bit about them in his Never Scared special.