mehan jayasuriya

“To a 2001 native’s ears, hip hop might seem to have warped and contracted like a cassette tape left in the sun. Hip hop’s sonic landscapes have become dense and opaque, as if producers have eschewed ocean-front mansions in favor of mood-lit penthouses as their architectural inspirations. Rappers are less bombastic, less self-satisfied, less jubilant. Even the most successful of today’s emcees seem cagey, apologetic, paranoid. Where the capitalist of choice in the early aughts might have been the world-conquering CEO with a rainbow of revenue streams, recent rappers seem to have more in common with an over-leveraged hedge-fund manager, skittish from too little sleep and too many stimulants, waiting desperately for the one bet to come through and make things right again.”