By: Thomas Pitts

Waka Flocka Flame announced on Twitter that he has decided to retire from hip hop stating, “This game 2 fake I quite rap after this year.” This is a direct quote. Yes he said “quite” instead of “quit”, but he also stated in an interview with Respect Magazine, “I’m not tryin’ to show off my intelligence. Anybody could memorize big words, put ‘em together. I could do that. But if I don’t use the words on an everyday basis, why use the words in my rap?” Maybe “quit” just isn’t in his everyday vocabulary so he doesn’t know how to spell it. Maybe not a bad thing depending on how you look at it… He then goes on to state that he would rather pursue a career at Wal-Mart.

I would like to say I am appalled by the news of Waka Flocka Flame’s retirement from hip hop. His contributions to the game where duly noted and much needed to the hip hop culture. Without him to shed light on how ignorant rappers can be, we would not be able to appreciate the good music out here. He stated in an interview, also with Respect Magazine, “I’m a good ass worker, and I’m here for a reason”. What better reason than to let hip hop culture know what direction not to move in, and whose style not to copy.

So once again Waka graces this generation of listeners with a great message to live by. If you’re doing something you love and get frustrated by the people surrounding your work, just quit living your dream. Every artist in the industry goes through challenges with “fakeness”, whatever that means. This is the way the industry is unfortunately, but the greats either look past this pitfall, or pave their own way. This is what makes them great and what makes Waka forgettable. I challenge all artists to be better. Do we not have enough rappers like this in the game right now? Take this retirement and see it as a chance to do something with a message, with originality. Maybe Waka just ran out of things to say or ways to say he’s a thug. I’ll welcome him back with open arms if he decides to try and “memorize big words” and show that he can be intelligent.

I’m Just Saying

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Throughout the development of hip-hop, ladies have lacked the recognition necessary to aid in acknowledging their presence in this growing culture. Women have been pivotal-and just as influential-since hip-hop’s formative years.

However, the industry in which hip hop is housed, offers little to no space for women to evolve and stand equally in the spotlight with their male counter-parts. It is quite an embarrassment to consider how women are portrayed as these one-dimensional, untalented, “show pieces;” when in fact, women are seldom credited for their persistence, intelligence and versatility when it comes to demonstrating any skills within this hip hop phenomenon.

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The phrase, “Blame it on Hip Hop,” is automatically starting dialogue through out the community. “Are these cats for real, are they holding it down, are they for the underground or commercial?”
Let go deeper inside and get a closer look and feel for BIOHH

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It is con safos. It is not con queso or beer con papas. Con Safos means with respect. It is taken from the dialect called Calo which was created in the streets of California as a lingo that mixed Spanish with English for second and third generation Mexican-Americans. It is known as a street language. It had bad connotations because it was associated to gang slang. But in reality Con Safos was used by graffiti writers, taggers who left messages on walls. So when someone wanted their artwork or message left up they would type C/S (Con Safos) at the end of their message like this:

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