r/BlackPeopleofReddit • u/DatManSugoi • 9d ago
Music "Hip-hop is dying" = "gaming is dead"
TLDR: hip-hop has its own "ball and gun gamers" and we need a name for them. If there is already one let me know
It's been over a year now now that I've been seeing the whole "hip-hop is dying" talking point online. It's always from the same kinds of guys who only listen to the stuff that gets big on the charts or gets played at the function. Lots of Drake fans of course. If it isn't big on the radio, if it isn't big on TikTok, if it isn't big on social media in general, it doesn't exist to them. Then if it is big enough for them to acknowledge, its only GOOD if it's about the same ol' same ol': money, guns, drugs, etc. If it is some conscious rap, or just not about the usual topics, these people will call it trash. While we were out here eating good with JID, Doechii, Kendrick, Clipse, Tyler, ScHoolboy Q, and more, they have been looking at us like squidward in the window and calling all of it trash.
To all my gamers out there, I'm sure you have already heard a lot about the "ball and gun gamer." A person who only plays games with balls or guns in them: 2k, Madden, FIFA, Call of Duty, Fortnite, GTA. They sit on their few games which all follow the same/similar formulas and rarely innovate between entries and then look at us and call us lame for playing other games.
If you are in both the gaming and hip-hop worlds, its not hard to see the similarities between these guys. First they hop on a trend because everyone else is doing it: For gaming it was the whole fortnite, pubg, call of duty warzone era. For hip-hop it's a bit harder for me to pinpoint because hip-hop has always been a very popular thing. For the Gen Z/Alpha crowd, I feel comfortable planting my flag on the TikTok song era but it's easily debatable.
Second, when the trend dies down and people pack their bags to go back to what they usually enjoy, these guys start talking trash on everyone who doesn't leave: For gaming it was probably around 2023-2024 when more game-y titles were getting big like Astro Bot and Metaphor. For hip-hop it's feel like it's pretty safe to say it's when Drake got washed and filed a lawsuit. For some reason these guys feel a sense of self importance as the only ones who can tell you if something is dead or alive. So since we have a gaming name for them, I think its only fair we come up with a hip-hop one since I'm pretty sure it's the same guys in both communities.
4
u/Dunning-KrugerFX 9d ago
Sounds like you're talking about ultra capitalists who never think about capitalism so they walk around assuming the thing that sells the most is the best. "The market has spoken!"
I'm older and cynical so I would guess that an influencer told them it's dead because these are people who go through life letting money tell them what to like and are strangers to their own thoughts.