Let me be real clear about this.

I do realize and appreciate that there's a few versatile MC's that exist
in the hip hop world as it stands today. But I've just about reached my
limit with some MC's need to flex their singing chops on almost every
record they make. There's always been rap records with singing; hell,
hip hop itself in the musical evolutionary chain owes its birth to funk,
R&B and jazz with all of their respective vocal stylings. I grew up on
Uptown Records ('Uptown kickin' it!!!') and was used to songstresses
making their name on hooks. Many of us lived on blend mixtapes as
well back in the day, for the NYC area especially with Dirty Harry, Clue
and Ron G.

These days though, it's getting outright outlandish. There's a couple of
artists out there who seem hell-bent on getting their Al B.Sure work in.
They're beginning to remind me of Alfalfa from the Little Rascals; they're
straight up crooning and getting over on a public that has become accepting
of this music. For example, Drake's 'Take Care'...yes, it has gone platinum.
But the best way to describe it comes from the husband of a college friend
of mine; 'it's cool, but it's like audio lotion.' In other words, soft. And while
hip hop has a soft side, too much of this rap crooning makes the music and
whatever message you want to get across more of a soapstone than the
diamond of truth you would expect. Truthfully, you could see this coming
back in the days when 50 Cent would sing his own hooks. But 50 never, ever
portrayed himself as a full-blown singer. Fast forward from that point to the
rise of T-Pain, the 'rapper turnt singer' and the beginning of Autotune as a
must-have tool in the studio. It coincides with the rise of the newer wave of
Southern MC's and their own unique style and in turn, that becomes an
entrenched part of the music. Think about how many singles you've heard
this year alone with an artist you KNOW has no business trying to be Peabo
Bryson singing in the middle of their song or for most of it with Autotune layers.
And some cats and some women act like little Darlas and fall for it, proclaiming
it to be better than anything out there. Which allows for Justin Beiber to now
have aspirations of rhyming.

I'm writing this not solely to throw rocks but to illustrate exactly what it is
that crowds the airwaves these days. And there are male MC's who can ably
flip between singing and rapping without looking crazy. Just know that the
hip-hop Alfalfas shouldn't be the only ones carrying Hip-Hop's torch. Because
too much oversexed, sacchrinated crooning can lead to them being viewed
by another word that can be used if you remove the 'R' from crooning. And
that's something we surely don't need.