Rap is in a crisis, according to Tory Lanez.
While promoting his R&B album Chixtape 5 on Hot 97’s “Ebro in the Morning,” the Toronto native weighed in on the status of hip-hop today.
“You gotta look at rap right now. Rap is in a horrible place,” said Tory before explaining his reasoning.
“I just feel like rap has gotten to a repetitive place. There’s this one sound right now that sounds like it’s out of an automated box and it’s like, let’s go on it, put a bunch of Auto-Tune on it, hood ni**a beat, hood ni**a song, it’s good to go.”
He thinks the sound has become too monotonous. “When everybody starts to sound the same, and I keep hearing the same drum, the same kick, the same snare, the same hi-hats, and the same patterns, it gets to a point where I start saying, ‘Yo, this shit’s in a bad place right now.'”
He also gave credit to Young Thug for inspiring the new generation of MCs. “I think Thugger is responsible for 75 percent of the rap style that’s going on right now,” he said. “And I don’t think that we shed enough light on Thugger for that. There’s a lot of copying of Thugger.”
Grammy-nominated Roddy Ricch is among those who’ve been influenced by Thug’s sound, according to Lanez. “There’s a heavy influence of Thugger’s style in Roddy Ricch’s music,” he said, “but at the end of the day, he takes his own inflections and makes his music what it is.”
Tory has turned his attention to R&B with Chixtape 5, which features collaborations with Lil Wayne, Chris Brown, Snoop Dogg, and Ashanti. The fifth installment in his throwback series is expected to debut at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 with 80-85,000 equivalent album units.