[Certain]

To me, the most popular layer of rap has RARELY been good. Maybe in the early 2000s thanks to Jay Z / Eminem / Ludacris and in the mid-1990s because of Dr. Dre and Wu-Tang Clan. But for the most part, there's a layer of crap to cut through, whether it's MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice or D4L and Jibbs or Drake and Young Thug.

And some of even that top layer stuff is actually good. And there's a bunch of it that we like for nostalgic reasons, like early-years Cash Money. If you were 15 years older, you probably would feel about the Hot Boy$ the way you now feel about Future. I have very clear recollection of the days when New Yorkers weren't giving anyone from the South other than Scarface, UGK and OutKast the time of day. Lil Jon was once the most popular producer in the world, and while I love that shit, it's not like it's some higher form of hip hop than Metro Boomin's producing.

What I meant by that last sentence in that previous post was that you seem to have respect for or even like a whole lot of new rappers when you really put your mind to it. You just like the guys who work with Alchemist and Statik Selektah instead of the guys who work with Mike Will Made It and DJ Esco. That's more than fine. That's exactly like the days when people loved Rawkus and decried Bad Boy or the Atlanta scene as the worst thing to happen to rap.