What do you mean???

Yeah but in the context of your video i feel like ‘artist’ has a pretty well defined meaning even if its implicit. Basically means somebody who’s more ‘musical’ than just a rapper. Problem with that is that the musicality of hiphop is downplayed

Seems like it depends on the context of how it was said.

As a label, "artist" encompasses more than what rapper does. So, if someone says, "I prefer to be called an artist because my ultimate pursuit is art. I'm an artist, and I'm also a rapper, I just like the term artist because it's limitless. Like, I might f*** around and write a book." there's nothing wrong with that imo.

Has there been a phenomenal rapper to say “I’m not a rapper, I’m an artist”? Just curious
It’s usually people weaker in the technical rapping ability

Did an Andre, Wayne, Black Thought type ever say something like this? My memory is hazy

I would think Andre, but I'm not really sure.

I know Wayne would say I'm a Rockstar, but that's about it.

Lil wayne doenst really count considering the 100 of times he profiled himself as best rapper alive

Not sure if you consider Kanye S-Tier but he did that s*** for awhile, even went as far as to say he doesn’t even listen to rap

Kendrick said it on the intro of the single version of i. Well he didnt say it but he got the narrator to say it about him

It was “hes not a rapper hes an author” though so not exactly the same

Yeah that’s why I don’t want to accept that definition. Downplays all the producers, all the rappers who use melody etc

When a street rapper says this it says to me “take me seriously”

And that’s only because there’s an overwhelming amount of poor rappers

It’s like the opposite of Rimbaud who was a phenomenal poet but called poetry absurd and pointless, only to abandon it entirely and spent the rest of his life smuggling guns in Africa

The issue is instead of saying im a rapper and im an artist, a lot of the times people say it they dismiss or downplay the rapper part

all rap serves an artistic purpose, its rap. all rappers who release music are considered recording artists.
the word artist is just more evocative to people and implies you're some multidisciplinary genius (even though most who say this are probably not). It really does stem from Ye and people wanting to be like him.

tommy richman

Yeah that's ultimately why I don't really fw the implications at the end of the day. Because it's like if a nigga only rap, then they're not exactly artistic and yet it's a real skill to paint pictures like Hov does for example. This is also how you get people sleeping on Big Boi just because he doesn't break out into falsetto like Andre sometimes.

Wayne is interesting cause he really tried. He probably got bored, which is a greater artistic pursuit IMO

For sure, like Post Malone or whatever, I get what u mean, that's ignorant.

Did you mention Wayne becoming a rockstar? That’s a pretty big one. all clones of that era

Posty - Bigoted

Gambino - Egotistical

Tyler - Contrarian (Edgelord)

Kanye - Contrarian (Schizophrenic)

BigXThaPlug - Whatever Lenny from Of Mice and Men had going on

It really has to do with how disrespectful some people are when they make this statement. Big X and Post both belittled rap to make their statement. It's not hard to just say "I want to explore other genres and express myself in as many ways as possible"

I also feel like the majority of underground rappers or rap-adjacent artists also produce and/or mix nowadays as you pointed out lol

Hadji could do a write up on Kanye alone to add to this

Kanye, Wayne and Andre remind me of Philip Larkin in that they find their craft torturous, something they’d rather not do at all. But they’re so good at it, so they must. Like a bad habit they couldn’t quit

They seem much different to those in OP who never tried to perfect their craft before moving on IMO

I think Wayne had a love for it at one point (especially learning guitar), but he probably knew he would never get to that level artistically, so he stick to what works best for him, which was spittin.

Why did BigX shared that he didn’t write his biggest song?

S*** like this just makes me more sadder that we may never get another solo rap album from 3 Stacks

Damn?? I actually don’t remember this. I gotta relisten in the context of i