New Music vs. Old Music, pt. 1: “A Boogie Is Lauryn Hill For N****s” (Article)

What up one & all. Sky Bento here on the check-in once again. Big Bento Energy is most definitely in full effect. Hope you & yours are doing good & well. Drinking water, protecting your mental health, knowing the vibes & all.

A new year is now fully underway. Plenty of people have already given up on the gym and other resolutions in favor of the age-old adage “next year is MY year”. With Mercury also in retrograde (yeah, I’m one of those), I’ve seen a lot of people going through it. Rather than spending their time fully underwater, I’ve noticed many are taking the time to truly reflect. It never hurts back to take a look back at the decisions that have gotten us to where we are today. But we can never truly revisit the past. All we have is the memories. These rose-tinted glasses prop the past up on a pedestal. Since we can’t fully experience it again, we yearn for it. We feel it to be greater than it actually was. You never know what you’ve got until it’s gone. With all these positive memories of the past and negative feelings toward the present, it can be easy to dismiss anything current in favor of nostalgia. This applies almost universally, but nowhere do I see the sentiment pop up more than in conversations about music. This is the first in a trilogy of articles dissecting this argument that nothing can ever recapture the magic of the good old days. Over the next couple months I will be looking at this debate from a few different angles. I hope you look forward to them. But for now, let’s get into it.

This was five years ago.

Feel old yet?

Does new music suck? Well the short answer is no. Roll the credits. But seriously. I actually got the idea to write this article when I recalled an old tweet that said “A Boogie is Lauryn Hill for n****s”. I echoed the sentiment on my own Twitter (I couldn’t find the OG tweet anywhere, sorry bruh) and of course, I was promptly crucified. Instead of arguing with a bunch of randos online, I dove deeper. I got to thinking about what this really meant - both to me and to the original tweet. Why did we both agree to this? Of course we don’t think Bronx newcomer A Boogie Wit Da Hoodie compares to the legend that is Ms. Lauryn Hill. But why don’t we? Why is it blasphemy to argue that? It’s music and music is subjective right? Freedom of speech right? Was this a Kanye West-type moment where I should’ve just shut my mouth so as not to hurt nobody’s feelings? Nah, never that. In fact it was my own feelings that led me to tweet what I twote (TM).

I was deep in my feelings about my relationship history. Not the same way a teenager might get all emo about it, but more along the lines of mature, adult reflection. Not fully blaming the women I’ve been with, but instead taking accountability of my own actions. Recognition of my own patterns and whatnot. You know the vibes. Get a therapist if you need one. But anyways this is in stark contrast to where I was at when I first discovered A Boogie in 2016. Back then I WAS still blaming everyone and everything that I had no control over, and doing little to look at myself. Likewise, that first A Boogie tape saw him in a similar mindstate. “D.T.B.”, “Still Think About You”, and my personal favorite, “Artist”, were all in heavy rotation and remain some of my favorite A Boogie joints to this day because of that connection I formed with them records. Fast forward to 2021. After publicly breaking up with the longtime girlfriend that inspired that initial mixtape (I think, I don’t really follow celebrity gossip like that) he drops a new EP featuring the song “Be Free”. On this song he pretty much admits he’s not good enough for her, or at least that they ain’t right for each other and that he cares enough to let her go. Not to get to personal, but yeah, I was very very far from that place in 2016. Needless to say, A Boogie was too.

To grow with an artist like that is rare, but it makes the connection to the artist much deeper. It really can’t be properly quantified to even begin to compare it to an experience someone else shares with a different artist. Now say A Boogie never dropped anything after that first project. I’d still have the same feelings toward those old records, but I’d probably listen to them a little less since I just can’t relate to them the same way from where I’m at in my life now. If nothing else, they would be solidified in my life as a type of time capsule back to a simpler time. It was a time when I would think that the things that I like are the only things that are good. That holds its own weight. Follow me. And especially if there were no new music to compare it to, I’d obviously feel stronger about it because those feelings just don’t exist anywhere else. Or at least, that’s how I’d feel.

I feel like Ms. Lauryn Hill needs no introduction. After breaking through with the Fugees and dropping a few classic hooks and bars over the course of their two studio albums, she really elevated herself to a whole new plateau when she dropped her solo album. The Fugees joints were not devoid of emotional heft, but when people (specifically women) speak of relating deeply to Lauryn Hill’s work, it’s usually 1998’s The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill that they’re referring to. Ask the Grammy’s. “Doo Wop (That Thing)” still pops up on the radio. “Ex-Factor” is still a go to for many heartbroken women, and even women who’ve healed. So with all this attention and hype and all of these accolades, what does she do next? Nothing. She goes dark. Aside from popping up on a feature here and there, Lauryn Hill just lives her life. She let the one body of work speak for herself and stepped away from celebrity. But the connection that millions of people (men and women alike) have made to her music still lives on.

You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain. This isn’t to say Lauryn would’ve fallen off (Nas just proved she didn’t), but after such a deeply personal and emblematic work of art, any and everything she would’ve done would’ve been scrutinized to death. There’s a reason why she catches so much flack just for being late to shows like pretty much every other rapper in existence. Misogyny plays a huge role in that, and of course also plays a large role in her and her work being conveniently forgotten (i.e. excluded) from so many best-of lists. But that connection an artist makes with their fans is priceless, and when there’s only the one work of art to go off of, Lauryn Hill fans pretty much only have the one album to keep returning to, which deepens the connection to it. And then those fans who were really outside in the late 90’s grow older and wiser and make more connections to it. So when they step up to the podium and say that this amazing work of art should not ever be compared to anything ever lest your head be chopped off, we regard it as a self-evident truth. Especially because these people are simply older than us. It’s like nobody is allowed to find that same connection anywhere else. It especially can’t exist in today’s music.

Music is easier to make than ever, which means we are exposed to a lot more of it. We are now finding artists whose artistry is still in its infancy. Them same folks who was outside in the late 90’s are so quick to label them talentless. I mean, look at 21 Savage, easily one of the most improved rappers of his generation. He was immediately labeled a mumble rapper with no real substance, and now while his entire aesthetic has remained, the details have elevated him to a whole new level. To go just a little bit further back, look at 2 Chainz, who had been around for a while, rebranded and re-emerged as a laughing stock in some circles, only to reach a point where it’s almost amazing he’d ever been counted out. I mean, he basically became the Snoop Dogg of Atlanta. I know the common belief is not that A Boogie’s new work is leaps and bounds ahead of where he started at. This is not to say anything of A Boogie’s actual talent, which is again subjective since we all listen to music for different reasons. Lauryn’s one album is commonly cited as one of the greatest albums of all time. Obviously, A Boogie’s Artist is not. But there is growth in A Boogie’s music, and each stop on his journey is important to a fan for its own reason. The emotional connection we make to music, and an artist’s ability to grow (just as we do) is really important to take into consideration when we talk about music.

So here we are in 2022. Genres are largely a thing of the past. Thanks to the internet, you can find whatever music it is that you like, be it good, bad, new, old, electronic, live, etc. Whatever you can imagine, I promise you it exists. And with that, yeah, there’s going to be plenty of music that you don’t like. In fact you’ll find more music you don’t like than music that you do. But it was like that in the 90’s too, there just wasn’t as much access. Y’all remember Vanilla Ice? The 90’s had Vanilla Ice. Okay now I’m just throwing shade. For real though, even the artists today who make throwback-style music in an effort to get the older crowd on their side, typically fall flat for leaning too heavily on what’s already been done. So you might as well try something new, or at least something current. Why wouldn’t a new artist make more of the music they already like? Of course you should put your own twist on it, but that develops naturally over time. There’s music for everybody to connect to. Nobody can tell you that you’re wrong in what you like. So find what you like. Find what you connect with. I promise you it’s out there. Whether it’s A Boogie or L Boogie.