Mannie Fresh reflected on the state of hip-hop and where he believes the genre is headed during a recent interview with Vibe. Speaking with the outlet, the veteran musician explained that he feels artists need to understand the roots of the genre to move it forward.
"I think hip-hop will still be around, but I just think we just got to change the rules," Fresh said when asked where hip-hop will be in 50 years.
He continued: "This is not to hurt any feelings, but if your feelings hurt, so be it. I think in order for it to keep growing and be bigger and better, this generation got to pay attention to the last generation. You got to know where it came from. You can’t just keep going forward, going, ‘I don’t give a shit. I’m about the money.’ We going to destroy hip-hop. Do I want you to get paid? Of course. If you did the job, and you showed up or whatever, do that. But if you don’t know nothing about it, then that’s kind of corny."
Elsewhere in the interview, he revealed that he likes to start his days by listening to legends such as Marvin Gaye.
“I got to listen to Minnie Riperton to really get my day going," he added. "Even if I’m doing rap, that’s my lock-in music to get me started. It’s going to start out with some old-school soul, just so I can appreciate music and go in the studio going, ‘Okay, my soul is filled. Now I can go at this.’”
“It’s all right to be in whatever category you in,” he clarified. “If you’re a storyteller, if you a bling rapper, whatever, and all of that. To me, when I was growing up, rap was a teacher. It had a whole bunch of categories. And now we on ‘get rich.’ That’s all we on, ‘get rich, get rich, get rich.’”
As for right now, Fresh says that he's busy working on Lil Wayne's Tha Carter VI. The highly-anticipated album will be Wayne's first full-length project since 2020's Funeral. The legendary rapper was recently spotted working in the studio with Juelz Santana for the album.
[Via]
