The 10 most unfortunate trends in hip-hop history

9 December 2010 No Comments

From Hammer Pants to Ghostriding the Whip the 10 most unfortunate trends in hip-hop history

By: Nick Aveling

HIP-HOP. IT STARTED IN THE park, then it blossomed into a way of life. Then it took over the world. Then people started wearing parachute pants the size of actual parachutes, starring in straight-to-video feature films without knowing the first thing about acting, and dancing on top of expensive cars that nobody seemed to be driving but were rolling down the street nonetheless. In honour of the brave, often misguided pioneers, Sway presents the 10 most unfortunate trends in hiphop history.

1 Hammer pants
It would be easy to criticize MC Hammer for wearing parachute pants so often and with so much enthusiasm that their name had to be changed. But parachute pants also make a kind of sense for Hammer. On some subconscious level, he must have been hoping they would soften the landing when he fell $13 million into debt.

Watch MC’s awesome, ground-breaking, iconic style in his ‘U Can’t Touch This” video:

2 Getting jiggy with it
Things were looking up in 1997. The rap wars were over, the Clinton economy was booming and, perhaps consequently, rappers everywhere felt comfortable wearing shiny suits. The jiggy era had arrived. Blame Will Smith. Blame Puffy and Mase. Blame yourself for buying their records. Whomever you blame, just be happy it’s over.

Wow, now watch the real deal — Will dancing and singing in his shiny suit.

3 Being lil’
Even the li’lest of rappers is bound to get bi’er eventually. Puberty did Bow Wow in at his prime, and given Lil’ Kim’s career arc, odds are it’s only a matter of time until some cabana boy fi nds her bobbing face down in a swimming pool fi lled with chocolate pudding. If you ask us, it’s high time to drop hip-hop’s most pervasive honourifi c altogether. Unless you’re Lil’ Wayne. Then it’s cool.

4 Producing low-budget straight-to-video movies For a while there, it was impossible to walk down the new releases aisle at Blockbuster without seeing 12 movies starring Silkk the Shocker, six starring Beanie Siegel, and another 37 starring Master P. But did even one of them ever come to a theatre near you? No. And did you ever bother renting one of them? We know we didn’t. Now we have You Tube if you really feel compelled to watch the Scene.

5 Brainless top 40 rap
Can someone tell us what happened to real hip-hop? Rap is supposed to be a sacred art form, not a bunch of drooling halfwits – who clearly record more songs a year than they listen to – chanting monosyllabically about expensive toys. Seriously, somebody bring real hip-hop back.

6 Complaining about brainless top 40 rap
Holier-than-thou underground heads, take note: 1991 to 1996 is never coming back, so shove those Jeru the Damaja B-sides where the sun don’t shine – your precious backpacks – and write some rhymes about something other than the good old days.

7 Reality shows
There’s a kind of raw sadism involved in watching Flavor Flav eat Brigitte Nielsen’s face that just doesn’t jive with hip-hop’s proud roots. Sure, he was always kind of weird, but that doesn’t mean he deserves to be remembered as the guy who got slapped by Sylvester Stallone’s ex-wife. VH1, this is all your fault.

8 XXXL Tees (on M bodies)
Come to think of it, XXXL Tees and Hammer Pants have a whole lot in common: they both look ridiculous, they’re both dangerous on escalators and history will judge them both with same mix of shame and denial.

9 Making it Rain
For those of you needing an explanation, making it rain has nothing to do with precipitation and everything to do with throwing money at strippers. Extra points for imagery, but tossing entire mortgages worth of cash at naked women just because you can — whatever you want to call it — is still really sleazy.

10 Ghostriding the Whip
We weren’t there when ghostriding the whip was invented, but the conversation could have only gone one way: “I’m just thinking out loud here, but do you guys want to dance around on the hood of a luxury automobile as it careens driverless down the street?”

“The street, eh? Say, isn’t that made out of pavement? Count me in.”