Happy New Year! Hopefully, you are reading this in a great spirit about this fresh 365 that awaits you. Since I know many of you are either hung over or got back to the grind ultra quick, I’ll make this somewhat short.

Where Do You Want Rap Music To Go in 2016?

2013-2014: I think Drug Culture really swarmed the game. It was all about as getting as high as you could off of whatever sounded cool at the time, all for the sake of the turn up.

2015: I’m actually kind of conflicted. On one hand Future and “Dirty Sprite” were the hottest things going in 2015. However you can’t deny that 2015 was possibly the year dancing was thrusted to the forefront. The Dab, Hitting The Quan, The Whip and Nae Nae and cooking all got scorching hot and young and old appropriated it. I also think “new rap warfare” was set, based on how Drake vs Meek started and ended quickly.

All in all, I don’t think we can put a finger on 1 thing that defined hip-hop or rap music in 2015. Part of that is, also due to a lot of rappers not drop traditional rap albums. The sub-genre and “musical factor” increased, but we lost a lot of traditional beats and skilled rhymes this year.

2016: I want the dancing to continue. I want more rhymes and less drugs. I want more than 1 bar about a social issue from people that really care. I want hypebeast to calm down, I want “classic” to be removed from albums that don’t get burn or praise for a solid 6 months in a calendar year. I want true originality to reign supreme. Not the young guy that inspires the younger guy, so we got 2 rappers that sound the same so no one truly dominates.

Last but not least, I want an actual NICE rapper to win big this year. Not the person with the hottest single, Not the person with the most money, the baddest chick or the realest crew. I want the guy with the freshest, most creative bars to have a big year in 2016. At lot people are getting too much praise just for being decent rhymers. Lets get a shock to our rap senses this year. That doesn’t happen much at all and possibly for the sake of rap vanity.

Enough about what I want. What do you want to see happen? Where do you think rap music is going in 2016?

Be Safe. Be Humble. Live Hip-Hop.