A little while ago I wrote an article called 5 Rap Artists You Must Hear Now. Or something like that. I’m too busy focusing on this killer song by Apathy to check. But, yes, Apathy was on that list. And, seriously, he’s one of the best rappers out there who isn’t a household name. But if you listen to the lyrics to “Rap Is Not Pop” you’ll learn that he does not like rap becoming pop. Or something to that effect. I don’t think he’s against it being popular, just that he doesn’t like rap that sounds like pop. You know, the sort with pop stars singing the hook that get played to death on pop stations. Or maybe he just doesn’t like people calling rap pop. He gives LL a shout out and he was all over pop radio so maybe it’s just that. Maybe he just doesn’t like rap being called pop. He could be fine with rappers having guests sing their hooks. And with rap being on pop radio. Who knows. But there are plenty of things you’ll learn about Apathy if you listen to this, and he’s plenty clear about those things. It’s just the hook that could be interpreted in different ways. And I’ll tell you one thing for sure: Apathy is never going to do a song with Rihanna or Gwen Stefani singing on it. He does all his hooks himself. He doesn’t have guests on all of his tracks like many rappers these days either. He has plenty enough to say without giving away any verses. That much I applaud. Guests on rap songs are as tiresome as auto-tune on pop songs now. I mean, some of them can be fantastic, but most of the time the guests don’t even refer to the song, just giving themselves an applause or ranting about something that has nothing to do with the rest of the track. If you’re lucky, they say the name of the song they’re on at the end of their guest verses but many of rappers can’t even be bothered to do that. Also, you do realize that many rappers just deliver guest verses because they’re getting paid. You don’t think that every rapper who guests on another rapper’s track is best buddies with him, do you? Anyway, Apathy is real. He’s a real guy with real opinions and he’s not going to sacrifice them for popularity. If he gets popular for being himself, I’m sure he wouldn’t complain. But he would seem to realize that that’s not likely and he doesn’t fucking care. He makes the music he wants to make, end of the story. And you won’t be calling it pop.
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