Taking to social media, 21 Savage issued a statement about the generational gap in hip-hop. “Why do so many of these ‘Og Rappers’ judge the new generation?” he asked. “They say we make drug user music like making drug selling music is better what’s the difference ? What about the fact that rap is the number one genre of music right now none of y’all acknowledge that. Artists been snorting cocaine and smoking crack since the 70s and 80s did y’all forget that?”
He continued with a call to action. “Instead of judging how about y’all make a change,” he said. “If the message in the previous generation of rap was so good why did so many of our parents abandon us for crack ? Why we still killing each other ? Don’t use us as the scape goat! Our music is a reflection of what’s going on in our community and all we doing is using our talent to escape that community.”
— Saint Laurent Don (@21savage) November 21, 2017
It’s unclear what prompted 21’s message, but it could very well be a response to Pete Rock. The famed producer and rapper recently attacked Waka Flocka Flame on Instagram over comments he made in an interview. “Our generation didnt experiment with pills or syrup or anything synthetic,” he wrote.
Pete Rock’s comments were a response to Waka, who spoke about the “older generation” during an interview with ThisIs50. “That’s not our generation’s fault,” he said. “That’s the older generation’s fault for not informing us and keeping us up to date. So it’s a lot of shit I be seeing the older generation saying like, ‘Y’all ni**as killing hip-hop.’ But y’all ni**as ain’t save it.’ Y’all was supposed to save it, all these old ni**as that’s poppin’ like they legends…If we getting f***ed by labels, y’all let us get f***ed. Y’all was doing this before us. We drinking Henny putting money in our ears. Y’all was doing that. Y’all had pistols in videos and all that.”
Source: Rap-Up