In this day and age, explicit words have easily been assimilated into our generation’s culture and language, to the point where we barely even notice. Or give a DAAAM! It’s extremely rare to find an album, much less a song that is 100% curse-free. If you’re in the small percentage of the demographic that still physically purchases CDs and vinyl, you’d know what I’m getting at. Groups like De La, A Tribe Called Quest and The Jungle Brothers were some Golden Era pioneers who were creative enough to write songs without incorporating the inevitable and prescribed “bitch,” “fuck,” shit,” and “asshole.” And that’s what it basically comes down to: creativity. I’ll probably catch flack from the c-section for this, but let’s be real, a percentage of this new generation generally lacks creativity. And who knows, maybe we’ve already crept past the tipping point of curse-free records.
Some info about the songs and why I chose them: I chose two Big L joints for the simple fact that the kid is a beast with the verbal shock-and-awe, the same Big L who ended Devil’s Son with this commentary: “Word, Big L the motherfucking Devil’s Son is definitely in effect. Giving a shout out to all the murderers, thieves, armed robbers, serial killers, psychos, lunatics, crackheads, mental patients, mental retards, and a special shoutout to all the niggas with AIDS, Peace.” Jay’s clean version of Dead Presidents showed his versatile penmanship, choosing to censor himself. Dope. Everything else is self-explanatory. Enjoy!
DOWNLOAD: Heavy D – Don’t Curse f. Big Daddy Kane, Grand Puba, Kool G. Rap, Q-Tip & Pete Rock & CL Smooth
DOWNLOAD: Jay-Z – Dead Presidents Clean
DOWNLOAD: ATCQ – Bugging Out
DOWNLOAD: Big L – MVP
DOWNLOAD: Big L – Street Struck
DOWNLOAD: Common – Retrospect For Life
DOWNLOAD: Rakim Allah – Guess Who’s Back
DOWNLOAD: Kurupt – Girls All Pause
DOWNLOAD: GZA – B.I.B.L.E. f. Killah Priest
DOWNLOAD: Pete Rock & CL Smooth – Take You There
DOWNLOAD: (2)Deep: The Don’t Curse Edition
I agree with you. I feel as if there are less swears, when they are used it’s to make a point. It’s just a lack of creativity.
Props for this post, before the hating shows up on the comments. Sometimes it’s refreshing to just hear an artist skip inserting a “bitch” comment in there for whatever reason. I’m always going to buy the uncensored version, but it’s nice to be able to play something around my grandmother’s ears.
I have issues with calling out creativity when there are plenty of creative artist out there that are shunned such as Charles Hamilton. Sure he’s done some foul things but his general output and his production style, not to mention his actions concerning his music, is different.
Plus, I think, if anything, this new generation is reflective of more creativity than say the past 10 years. The game has changed and there’s plenty of sub-genres now which is a reflection of a growth and exploration of creativity.
MURS, Murrays revenge… you will not find a single curse on that album. or any kind fo profanity and he is def one of our generations best…
just keep doing you, totally agree. most of the time (at least for radio rappers) they use curse words for filler and whatnot.
KnowOne, you’re a fucking fool.
Maybe I’m just an old head, but I just don’t see it. I’ve opened my mind to newer artists, and there are truly some great ones out there. The way I see it, there’s too many bandwagon passengers these days. A fine example of this is Twitter and “trending topics.” I see it as a distraction from actually producing creativity. Everything seems to follow a formula and exact science these days. Everyone wants to drop a freestyle over the latest GOOD Friday song now. How about getting into the booth and creating some original shit? Who cares how long it takes to get it out, as long as you putting out quality. You could come with the argument that the internet moves too fast, but look at Jay Electronica. The God has a one song per 6 months (at best) ratio, yet his buzz has really gone nowhere. Maybe I’m missing something. *shrugs*
Back to topic…
To say this generation lacks creativity is pretty mindless if you ask me.
Someone to think about for this post would be Chamillionaire post-The Sound of Revenge
Hmm… so you go on a tangent about twitter and really say nothing of substance. You don’t seem to be (2)deep.
google this – Digital crack vol 23
Ultimate mixtape
What Cham does is corny. He still says ‘heck’ and ‘freakin’ and wack shit like that. If your going to use curse word substitutes then just say the word. If you’re really not going to cuss then be creative and don’t write a verse where you have to use a filler word at all. BTW This is coming from a big Chamillionaire fan all the way back to ‘Get Ya Mind Correct’.
That’s what I’m talking about! Creativity is the esssence of what the game used to be. Nowadays everyone is rapping about the same stuff, like everyone really throwing that much money and able to take care of their bills.
Some artists swear to prove a point and I get that but other guys that have no point to make or prove should be showing off creatively rather than perpetrating and trying to live a life they see on tv.
Creativity should not be defined as just being able to put out an album and not swear on it at all. It should be defined as being able to reach a mass of different people and have them relate to something. De La Soul & A Tribe Called Quest did an amazing job at doing it. It’s just sad that no one else has the balls to do so anymore.
I’m done with the creativity argument. That’s not what this post revolves around. The science here is being able to write songs without having to insert an FCC blacklist word.
I definitely agree with you.
oh and I would’ve added Chamillionaire’s “The Ultimate Victory”,
it’s more recent, really dope, and doesn’t have a single curse.
pretty sure Cham`s Ultimate Victory is curse free
I will most likely say (unless someone can prove me different) that I was the only emcee in boston that battled, wrote, performed and recorded CURSE FREE all the time. To me its pointless, waste of time and paper (keep it real RAPPERS of 2010) yall don’t go in there and just record you know you write it down. I’m a child of the 70′s so my era had none of this useless chatter going on. Which is why I only buy a select few now-a-days I.e. Little Brother, Lupe, Kardinal, Akrobatik, Reks and that is all I can think of for now. I praise Heavy D for creating one of hip hop’s greatest posse cuts ever and you have to stop and think every last one of those emcees that was featured on it truly never got (or gets) the respect they deserve, blessings to Kool G Rap, Big Daddy Kane, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, Grand Puba, Q-Tip And Of Heavy D. I miss REAL hip hop yes but I can do with out the language.
Peace for that DJ Daz One.
@ Byaahman and come on son, No Cham or Lupe here. All these songs are from the early-to-mid 90s.
here’s some curse words for you: this shit you posted is fucking gay
I’m not sure if cursing directly correlates to a lack of creativity. That’s where this post makes me sort of cringe. But I understand what you mean with people jumping on the latest hot production and such. I’ve grumbled a number of times about various artists, a number of them I like, making these freestyles or remixes, sometimes even videos, over another persons song.
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I can’t tell if it’s them simply being lazy and trying to ride the coat tails of another rappers popular music; or is it them trying to quench the insatiable thirst of fans who expect new music as often as they refresh this page? Maybe some feel the pressure of staying relevant in this internet era. Niggas need their PayPal money.
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I wouldn’t complain about the formula though. It’s what works and people will ALWAYS do what works. Eventually the formula will get stale and breakdown. Or maybe it’ll get revised and reinvented. Or maybe something new will rise to the top. People are always working on the new.
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Ironically, since you don’t like the trend, THIS is actually a trend that happens ALL THE TIME as it reflects society and culture as a whole. You will once again be wondering what the fuck happened to hip-hop in about 5-10 years. And most likely, you’ll be against it.
The post DID revolve around creativity though, you said, “And that’s what it basically comes down to: creativity.”
That being said, a lot of people curse in their regular lives so if they rap, why wouldn’t they curse in their songs. I mean, congrats to people who don’t curse in their records, that doesn’t really take away from the overall creativity of a song. Cursing is more tolerant today than it was back then, people have become desensitized to them so it’s just natural you’ll hear more. Yeah, I can appreciate someone who doesn’t curse all the time but it is what it is.
“Will Smith don’t got to cuss in his raps to sell records – well I do, so fuck him and fuck you too.”
Thank you for putting up Dead Presidents. Everytime I would search for the version in the video, I would get links to Dead Presidents II.
Mos didn’t really curse on The Ecstatic. Just a tiny bit here and there. Haha. But then again he ties back to the prior generation
Mos Def – Casa Bey…is a good example. Comes nowhere near cursing.
I definitely agree… it shows a lack of vocabulary when one uses profanity for a lack of better words to express themselves. Too bad a lot of people don’t actually read* these days… smh. I hear people say “reading is boring”… well, you just have to find something that catches your interest.
*Reading something other than tabloids and gossip columns… i.e. Fiction literature, Professional journalism, etc.
Peace. The correlation between writing “curse-free” rhymes and creativity is simply being able to write something clever without having to use any of these 7 words the FCC despises (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_dirty_words#The_words). As much as we use these words, it DOES take some type of creativity to write a curse-free record. Especially considering how these words are second-nature these days. I could give a shit how many “fucks” a rapper uses, damn near my entire collection has that black and white sticker slapped across it. But if you could write something without using them, THEN who got da props? I stand firmly on my square though.
Fuck this post
word, this is a (2)dope post. it’s refreshing to see that artists can still create a meaningful and quality record without resorting to relying on rhyming ‘fuck’ with ‘fuck’ at the end of a couple lines. and i’m definitely not saying that i’d prefer arists to quit cussing, i just respect that an artist can occassionally create a song using a different voacabulary set from the norm.
peace KNOWxONE.
I’ve been featured on music that has been posted on this site (ill poetic, Ill Will). I won song of 2009 on HoodHype.com. My album was released in Japan and has about 3 cuss words on the entire album. Would you be willing to listen to it?
This is the time when I “drop knowledge” right? Lol yea I agree it would take longer to write a song without a curse word than 1 without it, but that’s only if you plan on rhyming a curse word with another word, if its just in there in the middle of a line and not part of any multi-syllable wordplay or rhyme scheme, then that’s not necessarily true…Example: Cassidy stays rhyming the same word at the end of each line repeatedly = lack of creativity…J. Cole rhymed “nigga” with “nigga” bout 4 times in his song Higher etc. That’s less creativity than the “curse” word matter
chamillionaire doesnt use swears
THE TRUTH
#
Fuck this post
Kanye East said this on October 12th, 2010 at 12:58 am
^^^^^^
No. Fuck you, buddy.
Good post KNOWxONE, agree with you entirely on this. The hate here is pretty uncalled for, and not properly backed up. On another note, just a quick question: Who are you? Are you a friend of Shake/Meka that just helps out once in a while when they aren’t around? Do you work for another site? No hate meant here.
I rarely swear in any of my tracks.
I rarely swear in regular conversation.
Real music represents real life.
Lol why you offended by words tho??
C’mon son..
“The hate here is pretty uncalled for”… he has said nothing of substance on this post whatsoever. If anything he’s just come across as someone afraid of embracing change, hence every post of his being songs from the 90′s. I respect hip-hop from every generation, but it’s FOOLISH to say that there is less creativity now then at any time before. And the twitter comment… wtf did that have to do with ANYTHING?
He’s also posted Wiz Khalifa Curren$y and Kanye (3 I can think of off top of my head)
I think he was just trying to make a comparison with the trending topics, and how people are copying others. Certainly not the best example here haha. But I don’t think he meant for the creativity comment to come off the way your exactly interpreting it. Really people, it doesn’t take a genius to see the point he’s trying to make.
It takes just as much creativity to make a song with curse words as is does without. They form such a minute fraction of available words that I find it comical to say creating “curse-free” records takes more creativity. And people would be rocking over dope instrumentals in the 90′s too if it were so readily available. So again, what was the point of this post???
fuck this
As a radio host of a Hip Hop show, I would rather play creative M.C.’s who can self edit their own songs rather than reverse edits or vocal drop outs. You don’t get that to often now.
Maybe Know x One’s thoughts were to get some cats on here to talk about Hip Hop and how it has changed, or how it really hasn’t. I personally curse a lot. Being in radio I have to constantly self edit myself. I can see where there are instances where a rapper may need to curse to get his or her point across, but it doesn’t mean that he or she is that much more witty than the next cat. If they are new songs or old songs, we all know good Hip Hop when we hear it.
To each his own. Respect for the great songs.
Trending topics aren’t necessarily people copying others, the whole point of trending topics is to show the pulse of America, or wherever you are. What people are talking about.
And as for the point he’s trying to make, it was just poorly made, that’s it. That’s like saying, “movies are better without sex, who needs to put sex into a movie to make it good.” If it’s good, it’s good! If a song is good & creative, and has curse words, then it’s still good and creative.
^^^ This. cosign Kennedy 100%. This post would have been better had he just said here are some dope songs without curse words. PERIOD.
to say rappers today are less creative cuz they curse is fuckin bullshit. there is waaayyy more creativity now compared to back in the day. Can u say subgenres???
This KNOWxONE guy is just like Shake. When people prove him wrong or disprove his baseless theory he stops responding, rofl.
proving wrong and disproving is the same thing, lol. weed leaves me altogether confused sometimes, and it is reflected in my posts.
…Using profanity does not equal limited vocabulary.
@KNOWxONE your concept was good but your flow/delivery was off and your lyrics lacked substance…lack of creativity/vocabulary is when rappers rhyme the same words with each other
I noticed Kanye didn’t curse on christian dior denim flow
Based on the comments, it seems like most people disprove of KNOWxONE’s comment. Don’t rip him. I thought his intentions were good (plus the music is good if you’ve never heard any of the songs. Get caught up youngins).
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I think a bigger challenge to rappers would be for them to try to make a song with zero simile punchlines. You hear a ton of rappers using “like” in almost every line. It’s practically a crutch for some of them.
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With their simile’s gone, those comparisons of how good they are become limited. Building imagery becomes more difficult as well. I think Meka and Shake should make a contest about this.
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Instead of the young up and coming mixtape where they received submissions, maybe make challenge where they limit things to a certain topic, or remove a certain literary element rappers tend to use and see who can make the best song without it. Could be cool.
Could be horrible too. haha.
Wow Onederin I think that all the time. I am so tired of hearing ‘like’ in rap songs. It is incredible easy to be ‘like’ something, you have a nearly limitless number of words to rhyme with.
I especially hate when someone says something along the lines of ‘I’m hoarse, like a racetrack’. No if you’re ‘hoarse’ then you’d be unlike the ‘horses’ at a racetrack.
On topic (sorry I’m a bit drunk)…I don’t think cursing necessarily has something to do with creativity. At times cursing can express raw emotion. But if you’re rhyming curses with curses, or relying on the n-word to stay afloat then yes, to a certain degree you lack creativity.
wow alot of comments,
im just gonna say thanks KNOWxONE for puttin all the tracks in a zip and individual files. lol
I wouldn’t say high use of profanity in hip-hop is due to lack of creativity, but I can see where you’re going. I mean hip-hop is supposed to be an art form, or rather a form of expression and sometimes being vulgar, or bending society’s rules might be part of that. I mean there’s cursing in plenty of movies I know of and no one says shit about that. Now I’ll admit there are some people out there who just make plain out ignorant music, or music that is just being made to be made and really isn’t about shit, no disrespect to anybody, but with that I could kind of see your point. The cursings there just for filler in the big picture which is just more filler seeing as to how it’s really about nothing. If that makes sense. lol But all in all it is nice to have hip-hop here and there that keeps it clean for tender ears.
You be creative with or without curse words.
Rappers in the early 80′s cursed but it wasn’t to the point of doing it just to do it. Will smith, I believe cursed twice in his career and LL dropped multiple cd’s curse free. The problem with profanity is that we have been disensitized to it, where it’s almost funny if you don’t hear one, if you notice it. Of couse, there’s a Hell of a lot more tracks that was curse free posted. Hot tracks, Blazing tracks !!
a new school artist that should definitely be up here is Shad K from london, ontario…3 albums, 1 mixtape, 0 curse words… and i for one have an upbringing which cursing is frowned upon essentially…
“Wow Onederin I think that all the time. I am so tired of hearing
just to throw in my two cents, id have to say that im not sure that a lack of creativity fully explains the inability by rappers today to not curse…..i think its funny that a rapper like diggy (smfh) talks about not cursing but say the N word is ok because its meaning transcends its roots or some bullshit. Man thats some shit, the N word is still a street slang/curse word that has been adopted for some reason to encompass brother or friend, honestly retarded. but i think if you listen to a lot of clean rap today, its just as wack as some rap thats all curses. theres a definite balance to be reached (there are some REALLYYYYYYY dope J Cole/Fashawn tracks that have minimal cursing and show definite MC talent). Im frustrated that rappers i know can spit resort to elementary rhymes and the easy route than if they curse, sometimes thats part of the role theyve adopted. but guys like waka flocka who curse every 2 words need to read a dictionary, or a picture book or something
Ok here’s how I see/hear it. A lot of rappers nowadays do depend on curse words when they can’t find another word to fill the gap, but there’s also a lot of rappers today that don’t. The thing about it is that rappers rarely glorify it, which is kinda good and bad at the same time. For example, like some people already said above, Kanye recently drop a track without cursing in his verses. Kanye never said “I’m dropping a non-profane song this friday”, he just dropped a dope track like he usually does. Meanwhile there’s rappers who actually let the fans/listeners know that their project is gonna be curse free, then the project is automatically labeled as “/corny/not as dope as the last one”. I was hanging with someone one day around the time Chamilionaire announced that his album (Ultimate Victory) would be non-explicit, and as soon as my homie heard that he automatically said “aww nobody wanna hear that shit”. So by actually telling people that you’re not cursing on your records, that’s where you go wrong at nowadays imo. A transition can easily be made to where cursing in records is no longer that cool, but it just takes the right big name rapper to vividly show it to the next generation, and it doesn’t have to be through 100% conscious rap either.
i always tell artist, if u can rap about bitches and hoes and all that but you can rap about it creatively then you got a lot of learning to do.
Shad is an amazing artist who hardly ever swears in his music…
Give him a listen.
In all honesty the music i make is dope and 100% curse free but thats cuz I dont like my creations being censored I want the listener to hear it just as I do…yall should check out my songs
*obviously the link is in my name
“Not the best, not the worst, and I occasionally I curse, to get my point across…” – Q-Tip
Dude, stick to posting music. You always come on here with some narrow minded backpacker viewpoint that gets shot down right away. You could say today’s artists lack creativity for a plethora of reasons but you chose profanity? Terrible argument.
And for the record Murray’s Revenge sucked compared to 3:16. The main reason? The lack of profanity made it corny as hell.
^^so its cool to swear? really? is this 1st grade?
The only time I think it interferes with creativity is when the same word is used at the end of every line. How is Em not mentioned anywhere? He has to be one of the most creative lyricists ever and he swears like it’s nobody’s business. “Will Smith don’t gotta cuss in his raps to sell records. Well I do, So FUCK him and FUCK you too!”
the homie Onederin hit it on the head…If you want to target lack of creativity then the way they craft punchlines or song structure is a much better indicator then use of profanity. First off let’s get off this moral high horse that profanities are like some solid thing that was created by some “god” to be absolute. Like all of language, its subjective to the time period, location, and cultural context.
Profanities are like all other pieces of language, they can be used for any number of reasons. I mean why not knock emcees who use alot of slang? Let’s stick to only using the “Queen’s” English? I mean how many times does a emcee have to say “yo”, “i’mma”, etc or any variation of contractions or colloquialisms? That’s because you are restricting and limiting their creativity. So by trying to critique their creativity you are in effect acting as a censor to their expression.
Now obviously its quite a few guys who just follow the formula of the man before them to get successful. But thats not even a new thing. Its a reason Barry Gordy or any of that era of cats released groups that did the same dance moves and madepractically the same songs…its because it sold.
Nothing’s changed now. In the earlier days you had what seemed like more creative artist because you also had fewer emcees on the larger scale. So you only saw the “best of the best” (for lack of better words) make it. You have no way of knowing all the hundreds of wannabe Tribe Called Quest clones who attempted to get deals but didn’t. Now with the internet and the allure of hip-hop success (an illusion LOL) you have much more people trying to be famous off it so of course you’re going to see more copy cats. Creativity and “originality” (I put this in parenthesis because nothing is truly ever original or new) always shines through if you looking for it. So while you have dudes who literally copy and paste their favorite emcee you have dudes that actual do things a different way. Of course they get labeled as not real hip-hop or emo-rap or some other term that narrows the view of the music and culture instead of trying to expand it and include their creativity…which you seem to want so badly…
Just my piece…
If they’re cursing for the sake of cursing, then yes it’s not necessary. However, if they’re cursing and it’s an extension of a sentiment they’re expressing in a song, or even if they’re cursing without it being directly related to the sentiment of the song, I don’t see a problem with that. In a relaxed, casual setting, most of the time people will curse. I don’t think because an artist curses, that makes the material any less or more creative, it just means they chose not to curse. You’re acting like there aren’t creative records with cursing. A lot of classic rap records aren’t curse free.
lack of creativity is all the rappers/singers who cant make their own music… not even write their own songs, come on, and if they do its nursery rhymes
One of Dom Kennedy’s mixtapes didn’t have a single curse word in it & it was a classic mixtape!
someone already posted it but I immediately thought of Chamillionaire
it doesn’t matter to me when they cuss or not, i just think that when they cuss atleast 10 times in a song(like most mainstream) that’s when it gets annoying. i try to listen to the actual lyrics(unlike mainstream fans who just like the beat) and i try to see if they are actually TRYING to rap rather than using a bunch of cuss words just for filler because they can’t think of anything else. Chamillionaire don’t cuss and he’s mainly my favorite rapper. He’s got the flow i like, the hook singings decent, he doesn’t need to cuss( he can say ish and i don’t get annoyed) but alot of people don’t like him mainly because he doesn’t cuss which is sad but it’s the age we live in where in television and music you have to cuss otherwise some people don’t get interested………….
Where is MIKE DREAMS ???
I feel like this might be a passive-aggressive shot at Odd Future. Shame on you.
Murs’ Sweet Lord was dope, and that was completely curse free… I hadn’t even realized that there weren’t any curses on it until I saw an interview then listened again… That’s how you know you make good music
RioS, the only reason people hate on Cham is because of how he avoids cursing, by using “ish”, “freaking”, or “heck”… it just comes across mad corny. If you’re gonna use freak instead of saying fuck then really what’s the purpose?
RioS, the only reason people hate on Cham is because of how he avoids cursing, by using “ish”, “freaking”, or “heck”… it just comes across mad corny. If you’re gonna use freak instead of saying fuck then really what’s the purpose?
yelp said this on October 12th, 2010 at 3:26 pm
idk im just saying when i hear it i don’t go like “why did he use that word instead of saying a cuss word” i just keep listening straight on just like i do with songs where they cuss. I guess some people just pick up on him not cussing then they don’t like it but it doesn’t bother me like that. Only thing that bothers me is when they black out the word and don’t replace a “clean” song like fuckin walmart or the “clean” songs that get leaked out
Fly.Union and Le For The Uncool don’t curse and they make great music
This is stupid…and the crazy thing is ignorant people are gonna support this stupidity. This is why I ALWAYS tell people to learn history, that way people can’t say bullshit to you. The next time somebody tells you about “cursing” or “curse words” ask them who cursed them, and when were they cursed? What makes these words different from other words? What holy book supports your view on this topic? I can almost guarantee you that you won’t get much of a response…cause chances are they don’t know shit. Come on people a so called “curse” word is no different than any other word. So Jay-Z can rhyme about selling drugs in his bars as long as he doesn’t use a so called “cursed word”? Negro please ::End Rant::
I ain’t mad at cha radio version was better than the original wit cursing