Jim Jones has shared his theory on why New York is in last place, in terms of Hip Hop influence.
Jones recently appeared on the Kitchen Talk podcast. In it, he talks about why New York is not getting anything done on the influence side of things.
New York used to lead the charge. It was where Hip Hop was created. As such, the city used to influence the entire scene. However, Atlanta has since taken over.
Jim Jones thinks that this was due to the culture within New York’s scene. The artists believe in strict competition. As such, there is not nearly as much cooperation between other artists, which leads to stagnance. The only way that this can change is if the entire culture is changed so that there are more collaborations between the various artists.
“New York has been at a state of emergency when it came to our place in Hip Hop for a long time, we’ve been in last place. One of the reasons is because we all know what New York is about everybody wants to be the man. Every few years it’s one person that’s unanimously New York. Jay would have it, Puffy would have it, Nas would have it. Then when 50 came out, 50 had it. It goes in those cycles. It’s never been a united thing where everybody is helping each other to become unanimously that man.”
People talking about the unhealthy competitiveness of New York’s music scene is not a new thing. This conversation has been going on for decades. This is just the most recent form of it.
Past solutions to New York’s problem
In 1998, Jay-Z released his song “Money, Cash, Hoes”. In it, he talks about how all of the other rappers are copying what Death Row Records did, which is to form little cliques and never feature anyone outside of that group.
There is also a conversation from 2000 that is important to this puzzle. Cam’ron, in his 2000 song “Let Me Know”, talks about how artists are trying to force their songs into being more southern by taking their dances and words.
More recently, on “The Breakfast Club”, Diddy has also talked about this and placed the blame on something else. He thinks that this is due to how most New York rappers are outsourcing their drill beats from London. He believes that if they would make their own beats in-house, then they would have more influence.
All of these suggestions are not exclusive. Rappers in one area could do more features together outside of their immediate circle and focus entirely on things within New York for a experience that could only be born from the city.