Xie Di, Bei Bei, AR, the three top rappers who have never been on rap variety shows, want to come to a joint cooperation news, as early as the beginning of this month has occupied the headlines of various rap self-media.
There is a saying that this kind of cooperation that only throws out a lineup and song title, has no idea what the quality of the lyrics content and the level of music production is, but can make the headlines, can only be done by the cooperation of top rappers.
Because everyone knows that the strength of these three is not blown out, and they have not been exposed through rap variety shows but still become top rappers, which highlights their ability.
And all three of them have been Chinese rap circle has been famous for a long time, Hit Song, Real Shit, what the three people want, which ensures that the lower limit of the co-operative song will never be low.
In the early hours of this morning, Xie Di's new album "Couple Hunnid Mixtape Vol.2" was released, and the "Empty Shell" in the album was also presented to everyone. And as I guessed before, Xie Di invited Babe and AR, who had not been on rap variety shows, to make songs together, which was obviously purposeful.
Sure enough, "Empty Shell" explores this problem: Chinese rap "on the surface it seems to be the real prosperity", but it is an "empty shell", lacking the spirit and connotation of HipHop.
Since it is exploring the problem, "Empty Shell" is obviously a "reasoned" rap that mainly expresses attitudes and opinions, although all three people are representatives of the Chinese rap technology flow - the technology here includes but is not limited to rhyme, fast mouth, flow, and the three are the top of the day no matter which technology they are in - but this cooperation will obviously not be a showmanship like "Arsenal".
After the release of the work, the comments of netizens exploded, and the biggest point of controversy was The lyrics of Babe. In various comment areas, there is no shortage of voices accusing Babe of "formula rap", "lyrics are not new", "inconsistent with the theme", although everyone also objectively admits that Babe's Flow is very showy and showy, but the doubt is still the mainstream voice.
To understand whether Babe fits or not, we must first look at what Xie Di is saying. As the initiator of this creation, Xie Di has the most comprehensive control over the theme of "empty shell", which is also the theme he really wants to express his views. Xie Di's level of lyrics is beyond doubt, and his characteristics are in-depth and simple.
"Lao Tzu won't go to work tomorrow", "Please carry the rmb Freestyle", "You sit in the last row, I sit next to the podium" these songs do not have too many flowery words and elaborate words and sentences, but they are extremely full of life, telling new ideas and revealing profound truths about the trivialities of life that everyone will encounter.
Although the main audience of "Empty Shell" is no longer ordinary people, the audience of "rap lovers who care about the development of Chinese rap" will not be a minority.
In Xie Di's eyes, the "empty shell" phenomenon is only a summary of the overall situation, and there are countless small phenomena in the subdivision, such as the control and guidance of capital over rappers, the ridiculousness of "rap teaching", the pan-entertainment of the rap circle, the "Rap Star" chase for traffic, the cheap harvesting of album and song copyrights, the restriction of rap creation, and the excessive commercialization of rap creation...
In the second lyrics, Xie Di's words turned sharply, expressing his disdain for the current "Rap Star". No matter how arrogant he is, no matter how "boastful" he says, it is difficult for people to refute it after listening to it. In the middle, Xie Di also learned to play a wordplay with AR, although it was only relatively simple "HIPHOP/HIPPOP" and "GOD/DOG".
Ar.'s commonly used "playing terrier" was also learned by Xie Di, "Maybe I'm just a show of black mirror black male protagonists" mentioned the classic British drama "Black Mirror"; "Your writing power is too small for me to feel fast and hard" is reminiscent of Corporal Morishita who said "good, very spirited".
This 6 minutes and 27 seconds of the song, Xie Di's lyrics accounted for 3 minutes and 54 seconds, in fact, it is already possible to produce a SOLO single, Xie Di's discussion of the theme and phenomenon of "empty shell" has been very comprehensive, Babe and AR in this song appear, more like to express their independent views and personal style, rather than to "cooperate with Xie Di to complete a song".
If we follow this conclusion to understand the lyrics of Babe and AR, we can jump out of the barrier of "must fit the theme" and figure out the main points of their expression. Just like some netizens said that "two responsible for diss empty shells and one responsible for empty shells".
Not to talk about this song "Empty Shell", even before, Babe is also the one with a slightly weaker lyrics ability among the three, everyone will praise Babe's superb rhyming skills, and will praise Babe's fast mouth, but few people think that Babe will write very meaningful lyrics. Even if PG One uses Babe's words in hip-hop and advertising songs, it is still impossible to deny this.
And Babe's shortcomings in lyrics also have a great relationship with his growth experience and musical career. Battle MC debuted rapper in two periods, the earlier Battle MC was mostly "thought", like Big Dog, Ma Jun and Pict, their lyrics are often quite deep;
In recent years, Battle MC pays more attention to catching explosive points and playing rhymes, and the depth of lyrics will be relatively weak. Babe happens to be the dividing line that divides these two periods, and he is one of the best of the latter Type Battle MC. Even in a way, one of them can be removed.
So, doesn't Babe have the ability to write lyrics based on a particular theme? Apparently not. His first widely disseminated work, Bia7 Junsheng, was a diss work with a distinct theme, and in that song, no one said that Babe wrote a word that was not good.
But why does that song line? Because Diss and Battle are the best things Babe is best at, he can naturally write the lyrics well, but if he changes the theme that Babe is less exposed to, he will not be able to play this advantage, and the quality of the lyrics will be reduced.
The public thinks that Babe's lyrics are "formula", "showmanship" and even "pompous", but for him, this is his essential style. Since Bei Bei, who joined the Red Flower Society early, has learned this style of lyrics, and the Red Flower Club originally played not "words and things", "highlighting the depth" of this gua (want to hear these basically go out and turn right to find NOUS).
They just want to show off, and they can make you dry up at the concert scene, but can you say that they are empty shells? They are not empty shells, because that is, in a way, their lives.
Therefore, I think that the phrase "Babe is responsible for being an empty shell" really makes some sense, and the sentence "My strength has always been" in Bebe's lyrics also echoes Xie Di's sentence "I can't feel fast and hard".
He doesn't need to deliberately try to "pretend" an empty shell, his strength has always been, and the things in his lyrics are absolutely empty for others to sing, but it is real enough for him to sing Bebe. In this song, Babe is the "empty shell", but he is solid, which is the essential difference between him and those true "empty shells".
And AR's views and expressions are similar to Xie Di, so it seems that Babe is more special, and the other two have no showmanship, he is alone in showing Flow, which sounds slightly contradictory.
But in fact, the focus of AR is different from Xie Di, his style is to play wordplay, such as "Li Taibai / say too white", "Spades 10 J Q K / how big brand", "everyone eats melon / everyone follows the trend / everyone film and television", "church (noun)/ church (verb)", "super care about the market / supermarket", "more than straw".
The scientific concept of "entropy" is used to correspond to "feeling that everything is going backwards", "still filming "Full House of Romance" (the production time is 2004) satirizing "Rap Star" only when he was a child, "retail investors like Gamestop" use the myth of "retail investors to defeat institutions" to compare their ability to "end the rules of the market", and "distinguish empty shells without eye checking" to compare their strong information identification ability.
Overall, AR is in the show Wordplay and play the terrier can also take into account the expression of the theme, Babe is only able to show Flow and tone, when he knows that he has obvious shortcomings in the lyrics, he did not choose to write a serious discussion, but partially stood on the opposite side of Xie Di and AR, performing an "empty shell" image to make the song more three-dimensional.
At present, this kind of arrangement design is actually quite good, listening to the depth of the lyrics has Xie Di, listening to Flow and tone has Babe, listening to Wordplay and playing with the terrier has AR, Babe's "not matching" is also a way of adjusting to some extent, if all three are reasoning, all the information explosion, it is too tired to listen.
For such an unattainable top-level cooperation and luxury configuration, we should not be too harsh, but should be appreciative to feel the spirit they want to pass on. If our listeners are discerning and aesthetically pleasing, then rap Chinese will never become an empty shell...