Creative Growth

[Slim Fiasco]

Trying to stay innovative and change your style with each album i.e. with time is definitely a good idea, however I think that one shouldn't pressure himself into doing that. I believe it should be a natural process and it should affect the lyrics i.e. its concepts, subject matter and convey your current thoughts and points of view, which are bound to get changed anyway. What I don't like is when people force themselves into going left field without feeling fully comfortable; and even if it's worth the risk, there should be a point of which you should just stop in case it doesn't go as well as you hoped so. And by left field I mean when one changes the musical aspect of their music (the instrumentals) and/or their delivery.

Let's take Em for example. He made a perfect transition and change of style from '99 through '02 and that pretty much assured his status as the GOAT. It resulted with 3 amazing albums, 1 great one (Devil's Night) and a whole lot of awesomeness in between. The way he's constantly changed his delivery makes an excellent argument in the "who's the best" discussions, but what we got in return were 2 subpar albums in Relapse and Recovery and one subpar EP. Now I know this debate has been done to death so I won't go more into it, but I'm sure that most of us would prefer him to stick with The Warning flow and evolve lyrically instead.

My 2nd example is Lupe. My problem with his beat selection as of late, aren't the beats themselves (I can get past how bad they are) but the way he promises you something different and fails to reach that goal. He even ended up tweeting how he (his beats) are still Hip-Hop but he doesn't realize that what technically makes a Hip-Hop beat, doesn't make it Hip-Hop - if you know what I mean? I also believe that his techno ish is forced exploring but I'll leave that as it is.

Ultimately, my point is that many attempts of creative growth end up being creative decline, and most likely because the process has been forced; so my question here is, would you rather get somewhat the same product (have Nas and his past few albums in mind) or would you rather have the artist risk evolution and possibly / more probably disappoint you instead? I think I'll go with the first one.