45. The Renaissance - Q-Tip

What's weird is, after all that reminiscent stuff of the 90s I wrote, I never really listened to Tribe in the 90s either. I cant' say I missed them though, because pretty much every one of my stoner friends liked them. They were on everywhere, like Wu Tang (another band that probably should've been on my list).

One of the most shocking this of this past millennium was Q-Tip coming out of nowhere and putting out, what some rappers call, a great "Back-pack rap" album. If there's a sub-genre of rap that I like, it's this "Back-pack rap" thing. I'm not sure what it means, but I'm guessing its the opposite of talking about your gat, hydraulics, bling bling, new dance crazy, bitches shakin' their azz, and repeatedly saying, "What" and "Yeah."

Rap took a beating these past 10 years. The good guys are definitely losing that battle to a combination of the phony rappers, their record companies and of course BET and MTV. The style has beaten the substance. Though it may be sad, this kind of happened to rock in the 80s with the whole glam rock thing. It did die a quick death when Pearl Jam and Nirvana came out though, so maybe gangsta rap will of a sudden die, and a new cooler form of rap will be born.