![]() ![]() And it feels as if there are more women rapping than ever before. There’s still plenty of levity to be found, in countless regional and indie scenes that don’t figure into radio airplay or Spotify playlists, but mostly you find it on the other side of the gender divide. Even the occasional Drake smash is not enough to disturb the disquiet. But the music bears the weight of all that anxiety and grief. When listening to these songs, it is impossible to not ache for their makers, to be afraid right along with them. This thread can be moving and also heartbreaking. ![]() Many of the male rappers are documenting social strife and commenting on the violence that comes with being young, Black, famous men. And then there’s the sense of foreshortened future that’s baked into the genre but has been amplified as gangsta rap branched off into trap, drill and other grittier subgenres. The narcotized indolence is everywhere the recounting of opioid abuse is so blasé (the Percs, Xans and Oxys) that these pillbox litanies leave you wondering if the Sackler family sponsored a wing in the rap museum. If the music were any more existentially morose, or stylistically comatose, mainstream hip-hop made by men might be headed the way of hair metal or disco. ![]() Like American men in general, our top male rappers appear to be in crisis: overwhelmed, confused, struggling to embody so many contradictory ideals. ![]()
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