Rap is popular. Real popular. Were we to guess, we'd estimate there are probably, like, at least 600-700 people who listen to it each day. That's a lot. Sadly, some of those people are doing so in error. Appealing as it is, too much rap can be a bad thing. Some people just need to take a break.
There are, to be sure, certainly a solid portion of those 600-700 people that listen to rap that should not be listening to rap, just as there are, to be sure, very certainly a bunch of reasons that the people listening to rap that shouldn't be listening to rap shouldn't be listening to rap.
Here then, are ten of the easier, most basic signs that you should not be listening to rap anymore.
Written by Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano)
RELATED: 10 Things to Say to Make Yourself Sound Well-Informed About Current Music (Even When You're Not Well-Informed About Current Music)
RELATED: 10 Things Rap Haters Say—And How to Respond
RELATED: Blasphemy 101: Replacing The Elements of Hip-Hop
Rap is popular. Real popular. Were we to guess, we'd estimate there are probably, like, at least 600-700 people who listen to it each day. That's a lot. Sadly, some of those people are doing so in error. Appealing as it is, too much rap can be a bad thing. Some people just need to take a break.
There are, to be sure, certainly a solid portion of those 600-700 people that listen to rap that should not be listening to rap, just as there are, to be sure, very certainly a bunch of reasons that the people listening to rap that shouldn't be listening to rap shouldn't be listening to rap.
Here then, are ten of the easier, most basic signs that you should not be listening to rap anymore.
Written by Shea Serrano (@SheaSerrano)
RELATED: 10 Things to Say to Make Yourself Sound Well-Informed About Current Music (Even When You're Not Well-Informed About Current Music)
RELATED: 10 Things Rap Haters Say—And How to Respond
RELATED: Blasphemy 101: Replacing The Elements of Hip-Hop
You type "da" in lieu of "the" in work emails.
Bro, typing "da" in a work email is, like, I mean that shit is basically the e-version of doing that Raise The Roof dance or wearing a hat backwards or tucking your shirt into your jeans. It's just not the move to make. Nobody has ever read "da" in an email and then be like, "I wasn't quite sure what to think of Jerry, but this 'da' does it: Jerry is THAT dude." Same as no chick has ever seen a bro with his Tommy Bahama shirt tucked into his jeans and been like, "I'm definitely blowing that guy tonight."
You know four ways to pronounce "Hundred."
When I was in college, I used to hang out with a guy that I'm going to call Jose. There were a handful of us hanging out at his apartment one day. Jose, proud as a papa bear, asked the group, "Anyone wanna see some porn?" We all said yes because that's what you do when you're with three other dudes in an apartment and it's the middle of the day.
Jose was like, "Cool. What kind?" We were like, "Um, what? The naked kind?" He was like, "Nah. Like, specifically? You want white on white? Black on white? Black on black? White on black on white? Asian? Mexican? Lesbian? Lesbian Asians and Mexicans? You want big tits? Big ass? Hardcore? Fetish? I only have, like, maybe eight or nine fetish tapes though." THIS FOOL INVENTED PORN CATEGORIES BEFORE ANYONE HAD EVEN THOUGHT OF PORNTUBE.COM LET ALONE CATEGORIES ON PORNTUBE.COM.
That's you if you know more than two ways to pronounce "hundred." You're Jose. You gotta chill, bro.
The only measurements you know are kilo and trey-pound.
Guilty of this one? Two things: 1. Kilo is from the International System of Units. This ain't a lab experiment, bro. This is America. We measure using customary units, player. How about if I give you a kilo's worth of karate chops to the boner? 2. Trey-pound isn't a measurement. It's a gun. So you really just fucked this one all the way off. Nice work.
You throw a party, the ladies ask for something to dance to, and you put on "Yonkers."
Your tumblr probably has SO many followers.
[Fart noise.]
You keep saying "loc" but you're neither from L.A. or a gangbanger.
You know when it's okay to say "loc"? When you're not you, is when. You're reading this right now, which means that you saw a link about signs that you shouldn't be listening to rap anymore and thought something like, "Ha! Oh man. I HAVE to see this." That's the least "loc" thing of all.
Exception: If you were about to say something like "locomotive" or "lockup" or "localizing" but got shot or stabbed after the first syllable. Then it's okay that you said "loc." You might as well die your bitch ass in the hospital though. Better to die and have people think your last word was "loc" then to live and have to explain to people that you got shot outside of a vegan feedstore talking about how there are so many organic shops concentrated in your local area now.
You keep calling your mom "ma dukes" or "thun."
Nope.
Move around, hoe.
You remember when the song that a rapper sampled in his new song was a popular all by itself and the rapper that sampled it doesn't.
You're old. Too old. Sorry. Just a good rule: If people are like, "YOU listen to rap?" or "What was rap like when you were young?" then that's a good clue that you aged yourself out of the bracket.
You've said something like, "Hip-hop is dead."
Yuck.
The Hip-Hop Is Dead guy is the same guy that's convinced that the only reason his homeboy who raps about the apartheid isn't a global rap megastar is because people don't appreciate "lyrical" rap anymore. Nope. People just don't like that guy's raps. That guy makes describing someone's music as "lyrical" sound like a euphemism for "doesn't know how to make a hook that won't make people want to get shot in the ears with flaming arrows."
You're not Black and you think it's okay to say "n****."
It's not. It's just not. You need a rap break.
You want rappers to apologize for their lyrics.
Nope. No. Nope.
Why don’t we just go ahead and have Rocky apologize to Ivan Drago for crushing his balls in Rocky IV then and have Arnold Schwarzenegger apologize for killing the predator in Predator and have Bruce Leroy for glow-kicking Sho-Nuff in The Last Dragon? Three letters:
F.
O.
H.
Let me tell you a little story: In the year of our Lord 1787, George Washington, Ben Franklin, James Madison, and a handful of other bros sat down and drafted the US Constitution and it became the supreme law and it stayed that way for about a billion years. Then the Zulu nation found it and that's how we got rap music, then they put it back because they had ultimate respect. We were getting along just fine in the United States until in 2004 Nic Cage nearly got sent to prison for life by the FBI for trying to protect it from Ian. He did that in part to restore honor to his family's name but also to make sure that nobody ever dumped on the rights held within the Constitution because he knew those to be absolute, and one of those rights was the freedom of speech because he knew George Washington was the tits and they all did everything that they did so that rappers could rap about whatever they wanted to rap about.
That's a little thing called doing some research, bro. Welcome to class.
