the art of geniuses

today anyone can make music, but it takes a real genius to make art. visualize my point: i have a blank canvas, a brush, and some paint. i can paint a picture of a stick person or a house or some shit, and just because i can paint a nice picture of a house, doesn't mean that my work is ART. it'll probably be a nice lil something to throw over the toiletseat but it won't go down in the annuls of time, nor the louvre. i believe the same theory applies to music, and people release thousands of songs everyday, however only the true stars will shine.

even though there are hundreds of artists getting airplay every year, i believe that there are only a small handful of musical geniuses. everyone else pretends to be one, they have the backing of one, or both (ie: 50 cent, memphis bleek, diddy <--hurts me to say that). allow me to elaborate on my examples: 50 cent made decent songs before he linked up with dr. dre and eminem. he pretends to be a genius now, claiming to have the secret formula to music success (see "who does g-unit remind us of" post from aug. 31). he was fortunate to become a part of a great music making machine; he is the ultimate combo of pretend genius having the backing of not one, but TWO musical geniuses. 50's a star tho, but his shit will burn out, just like ja-rule did unless his sing-songy ass gets back to his natural ways.

memphis bleek doesn't pretend to be anything other than what he is, a sidekick, and i don't hate on him for that. in fact, i respect bleek for falling back and not saying much at all. he let's his musical genius do all the talking for him. jay-z said, "bleek could be one hit away from his whole career/as long as i'm alive he's a millionaire/and even if i die he's in my will somewhere/so he can get just kick back and chill somewhere/oh yeah, he won't even have to write rhymes/cuz the dynasty, like my money, last 3 lifetimes." though hov shows his support for bleek, he obviously recognizes that bleek, with only decent flow, is not a reckoning force in the rap game.

as for diddy, it goes without saying that he is one of the greatest businessmen in hip hop in the last 15 yrs. his production in the early 90's for mary j and jodeci are classic, as was his music catalog during the mid-90's with the rise of bad boy music. however, it's now evident that he has allowed music to fall to the wayside in order for his other business ventures to grow. however, i think it's obvious to many that diddy's music credibility would have been stripped away from him by now had he not discovered the late, great notorious b.i.g. his recent ventures with "making the band" on mtv shows that his musical side of his brain may have become damaged. perhaps it was a mix of too much dancing and showboating. no true music man, regardless of the amount of business savvy present, would have and could have thought that those niggas (and females on the 2nd go round) would form any type of respectable group. though chopper and 'em made for FANTASTIC tv, who is honestly going to remember the niggas from "the band" in five years? i will give diddy a lot of credit and say that he has done a lot for hip hop as a businessman, especially being such a visible person. however, at some point people are going to look at him as one big publicity stunt, instead of the business genius that he is. when it comes to overexposure, diddy definitely can't stop, won't stop.

it's an understood notion that most geniuses are slightly off in one way or another. this brings me to two of my favorite musical geniuses: kanye west and eminem. i am in no way saying that they are the only two, but they're two artists that seem to always have some type of controversy following them.

i don't know how many times i've had a conversation with someone about musical genius and they'll said to me, "kanye is such is dick! he's so arrogant and i can't stand him." my favorite was my boy, dorian, saying, "you think kanye is a genius? you're a damn fool. his beats are tight, but his lyrics are lunch table." but as soon as one of his songs comes on the radio or tv, they'll sing along word for word. usually people as arrogant as kanye will completely turn you off, in EVERY aspect, however, 'ye is one of the few who can say the most off the wall shit (like he got snubbed for an AMA award <--nigga please) and still have a following, because he let's his music do his true talking for him. and fortunately for kanye, he has stepped his flow up in between his first and sophomore album, making his thoughts that much clearer. my boy, pat, put it this way in describing kanye's second album and some unreleased kanye tracks he had: "u have to hear this niggas flow! its been stepped up like a motherfucker. hes on a pac, jigga and dre level with the consciousness, the cleverness, and the beats." that may sound outlandish, but if you knew pat, you'd know you could take him at his word; shit, my boy knows his music.

eminem is just an enigma. he's the only person who will call his mom or wife a "crack, whore bitch" and keep it moving. everything about him is exceptionally unique: his lyrical style, flow, and word play. however, he has the innate ability to push all the wrong buttons, though it's obvious that one of those buttons is "play" because that what most of us do to his music. he realizes that as long as he says off the wall shit, we are going to continue to criticize, and buy his music to see what he will say next. but besides the crazy antics, his actual lyrical ability is 2nd to none. most will agree that em even shitted on jigga's "renegade" on the blueprint, a classic effort from another lyrical genius. shit, even nas touched on the point in the song "ether" on stillmatic. so with that thought in mind, could anyone deny eminem his credit of being a musical genius? he rhymes as effortlessly as one would breath.

in conclusion, there was no real point in writing this post. i just wanted to state the obvious, and that was certain people's music will go down in hip hop history and be forever remembered, while others, though they make good music, won't even register a blip on the hip hop radar by the end of this decade. music is art, and just like painting and sculpting, only true geniuses will be remembered. but hell, it's just my thoughts ladies and gentlemen.