Jay Z famously said, “I’m not a biter, I’m a writer…”, which sounded really cool until Cam’ron took him to task. Recently, another up and coming lyricist is beginning to feel that heat.
Logic, who dropped his second LP The Incredible True Story just last week, has been accused by some of sounding a little too much like his contemporaries on his latest work, which of course is taboo in hip-hop.
Rap is heavily rooted in creative expression. In fact, you could argue it’s one of the most creative genres of music. While sampling is largely responsible for many of the instrumentations we’ve all rocked to, hip-hop is the only style of music that can allow for song lyrics to be authored on the spot out of thin air. Whether it be battle rappers or legends like Jay and Biggie Smalls who famously freestyled many of their rhymes on command in the booth, true lyricism, and the wit that encompasses it, is the mark of the exalted.
So when an emcee with as much promise as Logic gets accused of something like this, it’s disconcerting at the very least.
Is Logic swagger-jacking as the above video claims? Maybe. It’s certainty debatable. The bigger issue here though is hearing this accusation caused me to immediately harken back to the Tale of the Tape for his first album, Under Pressure. The review was good, but Logic’s propensity for sounding like his peers held this project back (see the first paragraph after “Fight Night”). Once is an accident, twice is a trend; Logic’s approach appears to be less a neglectful oversight and more a conscious musical methodology.
The good news however is twofold: First, although Logic himself has made it known his mind was only sparked by other emcees and that there is no malicious intent behind any of this (he doesn’t exactly deny the biting either), he’s received support from some of the most influential voices in the game (for the most part).
He’s just inspired. https://t.co/WAbsq7B5GZ
— Charlamagne Tha God (@cthagod) November 23, 2015
Secondly, remember earlier when I said biting was “taboo in hip-hop”? Maybe it was 15 years ago, but not anymore. The Drake/Meek/Quentin Miller fiasco from this summer taught us that. Today’s rap fan has evolved; if the music is dope enough, the biting ultimately won’t matter (some will even tell you Jigga has skated for years on this matter by way of this rule).
Call me old fashioned, but as long as Logic continues to make music this way, there will always be a self-imposed lid on his potential. It’s fine to be inspired, but what separates Cole, Drake and Kendrick from the masses is their ability set trends and develop flows that others follow. Creatively, they’re on another plateau. Conceptually, Logic’s work is impressive, but it’s unfortunate that Bobby (ostensibly anyway) either can’t or isn’t willing to push the lyrical envelope himself, because he has all the talent in the world to do so.