Posted March 26, 2008
By tseigler

Remember when rappers couldn’t stand one another and tried to take each other out? It’s been over a decade since B.I.G. and Tupac got shot, and it seems like rap is the most peaceful of all the musical genres.

Granted, you don’t see James Taylor waiting outside Sheryl Crow’s place with an Uzi and a getaway limo. But rap and violence have seemed logical partners since the beginning, when rappers started doing their thing to escape the crime and poverty of the inner city. Many rappers celebrate illegal activities such as drug-dealing, prostitution, and editing “The National Review” (William F. Buckley’s gangsta name was “Smooth Willie”). And for a long time, you couldn’t step on another rapper’s turf without getting a cap in your ass.

But rap seems to be beyond that now, except for some isolated pockets of reckless gunplay. Collaboration seems to be more popular. Just look at all the songs on the radio, most of them are “featuring,” “with a guest appearance by,” or “contractually obligated by the record company to include.” And that’s not counting “pot sold to us by Snoop Dogg in the recording studio.”

The great thing about rap is that it can accommodate such efforts without losing face. There aren’t many all-star collaborations in rock that stand up well (hello, “We Are the World?”). So don’t be a hater and wish for the “good ole days” when rappers unleashed stray bullets instead of mad rhymes. Unless Matchbox 20 and Maroon 5 throw down to see who is the lamest of the lame, music will be a much safer place to be.