“I think a lot of artists got lazy and a lot of these new artists don’t know their history…It seems like it’s not from the heart and it’s from the brain.”
Outside of being the Wizard of Poetry and speaking to the needs of the opposite sex, Ghostface Killah is a pioneer to the game and has etched his mark in the history of the art form.
With his beginnings in the Wu Tang Clan to his 1996 debut, Ironman, Starks has been through the golden era of Hip-Hop and is still standing to tell the story and deliver something for the new age of rap.
Speaking with RealTalkNY, Starks opened newcomers up on what it takes to continue to preserve the state of the music and how vital it is to be aware of where everything came from. Everything has an origin and the past must always be acknowledged in order to take things into the future.
“If you don’t know your history, then you don’t know where you’re going. Once you don’t know the Kool G Raps and the Big Daddy Kanes and Chubb Rocks and Brand Nubians and De La Soul and Slick Rick, then you don’t really know Shyte. The game has changed and it has evolved into something else, which was going to happen.”
The rapper elaborated on how music, not just Hip-Hop, is ever-changing. Spanning back to the old school era of music, it made a transition towards Disco and then to the 80s R&B and so on. Nothing ever stays the same for too long, so it was eminent that Hip-Hop would see its own transition.
Those that are truly passionate about music can easily sense what was manufactured and what is pure in its essence. The same deduction is made to see who is in the game strictly for the money and who is in it to exercise their freedom of speech.
“We in the point where you still got real people that took music seriously still living in the mix in the days and times where all this bullShyte is taking place. So we can go ahead and tell the difference. Now these young kids are on a different level, but you have to remember that they are teenagers and this is what they do so they have fun with it.”
Perception is the overlying issue that exists in the genre. What a 40-year-old sees as simple, an 18-year-old might deem the same thing to be the best they ever heard.
GFK also puts the responsibility into the grassroots of the Hip-Hop. As the DJ used to be THE factor back in the day, the DJ of today is unwilling to push what they feel should be and conform to what is accepted and receptive to the public.
“You gon’ talk about we need to hip-hop back, but yet you the muthaFawka that spinning the Shyte 100 times a day. And then when we ask why you spinning it, because ‘Yo, that’s what the people’s calling for.’ They wouldn’t be calling for Shyte if you wasn’t playing it.”
The evolution or devolution of Hip-Hop is a topic that continues to stay in question with no chance of an answer. At the end of the day, something needs to give because the tug of war can only go until the rope snaps and everything comes crashing down.
