For someone who's been one of the dominating figures in hip-hop during the last half of 2017, Post Malone's opinion about the "realness" of the genre's current crop of music is, well, kind of shocking.
The "Rockstar" emcee spoke with Polish media outlet Newonce about a variety of topics, but his most interesting revelation came when he advised those watching that, if you're looking to massage your feelings after a long day or want some music to connect to on a deeper level, then it might be best to avoid hip-hop altogether.
"If you're looking for lyrics, if you're looking to cry, if you're looking to think about life, don't listen to hip-hop," Posty said. "There's great hip-hop songs where they talk about life and they spit that real s**t, but right now, there's not a lot of people talking about real s**t." Though that's an pretty incendiary statement, at last Malone was willing to back up that kind of thought with examples from his own life.
"Whenever I want to cry, whenever I want to sit down and have a nice cry, I'll listen to some Bob Dylan," he added. "Or whenever I'm trying to have a good time and stay in a positive mood, I listen to hip-hop. Because it's fun. I think hip-hop is important because it brings people together in a beautiful, happy way."
There's a lot to unpack here, especially with Post Malone's notion that hip-hop can only be used to increase a positive emotional response, in his case anyways. There's plenty of introspective rap music that touches on key subjects, most notably inequality and fighting for your rights if you're a member of a marginalized group, but perhaps that isn't always present in the genre's current climate. Is that a problem though? Does one need their lyrics to be more than just surface-layer flexing in order for a piece of hip-hop music to be effective? Your mileage may vary with that theory.
Elsewhere, Malone recently revealed the release date for his upcoming album, Beerbongs & Bentleys, to be dropping December 1st at midnight. Ty Dolla $ign, Nicki Minaj and some other big names will be appearing on the LP as featured artists. Check out all the recent updates on that project here.