After reading another of Dan Rinderle's ignorant and pointless rants that are considered columns in Tuesday's Post, I feel compelled to reply to some of the remarks he has made about a figure in hip-hop culture, a culture Rinderle obviously knows very little about.
Instead of debating whether Jay-Z is a great rapper, I'd like to point out the carelessness and lack of knowledge Rinderle has regarding hip hop in general. When Biggie and 2Pac were alive, they were never acknowledged as the biggest stars of rap music. They became legends, as many do, upon their deaths, when people really took notice of the talent they possessed. Biggie had only released one album before he was killed; it was his work that was released posthumously that cemented his legacy in hip-hop.
Jay-Z did not claim any sort of throne after the deaths of these respective stars. It was the public that put him on the top of the rap game, and that was based on the fact that he made music with which people could identify and because they believed he was a talented musician. The assertion that he became a prostitute to the rap industry is simply preposterous. Jay-Z said it best himself in the song Moment of Clarity
when he states If skills sold truth be told I'd probably be
lyrically
Talib Kweli. Truthfully
I wanna rhyme like Common Sense
but I did five mill' I ain't been rhyming like Common since. That line epitomizes the nature of the music industry. In his own admission, he acknowledges he is not offering the most socially conscious material to his listeners, but he is making the point that he has been far more successful by making music that is commercially successful, and he has the bank account to prove this is what his fans desire.
As for Rinderle, it is good to know that I can pick up Tuesday's Post from now on without having to suffer through the nonsense his column offers to readers regarding late pizza delivery or personal opinions on topics he has no business speaking about. If he truly feels as though he can produce better music than Jay-Z or similar artists have to offer, I challenge him to come out to a local hip-hop event and display his skills. In the meantime I think Rinderle has 99 problems himself, and being a true journalist is No. 1.
-Stu Pflaum is a senior political science major. Send him an e-mail at stuart.pflaum@ohiou.edu.
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