This Post Has No Famous Guest Appearances
Imagine if Nas‘ Illmatic featured guest appearances from Jay-Z, Prodigy,The Notorious BI.G., Keith Murray, Common, Q-Tip, and a host of his other contemporaries. Sure, as fan of all of these artists, this sounds like a dream. However, when you really think about it would that album be anywhere near what it is if Nas wasn’t the primary voice? What if instead of being Nas’ first hand account of life in the rotten apple, ‘New York State of Mind’ just featured every hot New York rapper of the moment? Collaboration is as essential to hip-hop as any of the ‘elements,’ and most classic albums have at least one feature, but recently it seems like emcees are almost afraid to carry an album by themselves. That may not be the case, but something is definitely up. Just look at the albums that were in contention for 5 mics in The Source – Drake has features on 7/14 tracks, Big Boi 11/15, Bun B on 11/16, and Rick Ross on 10/11.
XXL Magazine recently ran a piece on their website mathematically breaking down the time alotted to guets on Rick Ross‘ Teflon Don, and Ross actually raps less than 50 percent of the time on his own album! The odd thing about it is, some of these features are totally unncessary. Gucci Mane‘s verse on ‘MC Hammer,’ for example, added nothing to the song, which was a certified banger long before Gucci hopped on it. Similarly, as much as we like both Drake and The-Dream, did Dream really need to be on ‘Shut It Down’? We’re sure Drake could’ve held down that song on his own. Obviously these artists think adding a bunch of people to their projects will make them better, but why?
NEXT PAGE: SO WHAT’S THE DEAL?
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As with most things in music nowadays, it probably just boils down to creating buzz in order to sell records. Sure, Drake had enough buzz to sell an album on his own, but when you add Jay-Z, Lil’ Wayne, Nicki Minaj, and T.I. to the mix suddenly people become a lot more interested. Same with Ross – the idea of Jadakiss, Kanye West, Erykah Badu, Cee-Lo, Diddy, Chrisette Michele and Raphael Saadiq all on the same album was a pretty huge selling point for Teflon Don. In a sense, it’s great that all of our favorite artists are working together and sharing their creative energy, but there is something to be said for the solo LP and song as an artform. When we buy an artist’s album it’s because we’re fans of them – of their voice, their style, their way of telling their story. When an album is filled with guests you lose that.
J. Cole has made a point of stating that his still-untitle debut album, which is set for release on October 26 will have no guest appearances. When asked why, he said ‘I have too much to say to be giving up verse spots.’ We’re not saying we don’t want any features on o
