Here is Future talking about how “Karate Chop” is next single (YAY) and how it will feature Lil Wayne (EHH). (I wanted them to throw Future’s Dungeon uncle Khujo on it but what do I know about rap music? Nothing, I know nothing.)
Nayvadius then goes on to talk about how style biters pushed him to advance the voice crack approach that he uses on “Karate Chop” and “My.” Lately I’ve been thinking about this trend, how experimentation and evolution in rap styles has progressed from being a mostly cadence oriented push to being more about showing off new intonation and pronunciation techniques. I mean dudes are still changing cadences (or more likely, biting them WHATEVER) but it seems like a greater emphasis has been put on weird inflections, from Nicki’s accents and Future’s voice cracks and Kendrick’s Zeldar spit all the way down to those growly New York goth kids who suck off the ASAP teet. All of this is alright with me (except for maybe the Goth Growls –
YOU AREN’T NOSAJ OR SEBASTIAN BRUH
).
Lil Wayne is probably responsible for evolving this game, but strangely he isn’t playing it at all anymore. This is why he will inevitably sound out of place when he lays his “Karate Chop” verse. In part he’s been outmodded, the depths of his past gurgles sound downright quaint in light of today’s multitracked madness but also I think he stopped caring. When people talk about how Wayne fell off as a rapper they usually point to the awfulness of his punchlines. This is a bit of a red herring, I think. Even in his prime he was frequently sort of corny on the page. The difference between then and now is that he’s not really selling the corn through styles anymore, not styles of cadence or styles of inflection. He’s become a regular ass rapper and his writing alone can’t carry that.
I didn’t watch this video because I don’t care about future really, just wanted to highlight that because I like New Kingdom a lot.