Hip Hop Predictions

When I was younger my dad was a high school basketball coach. I loved traveling with his teams and went to almost every game. I became a good luck charm of sorts, and his players were like big brothers to me. During each game the players would ask me to hold onto their cassette players and jewelry. There I was, a six-year-old white kid, decked out in multiple gold chains, listening to some of the most inspiring, influential, and controversial hip-hop music 1994 had to offer. Fifteen years later, I'm still a huge hip-hop fan and I follow the genre closely.

Everyday I search the web for new music and hip-hop related stories. Put it this way: If something noteworthy happens involving a rapper, I'll surely know about it. Because I'm a self-proclaimed hip-hop expert, coupled with the fact that we've just started a new year, I thought it would be only appropriate to share some of my thoughts on what's going to go down in the near future.

The Year of Drake and J. Cole
To say that this is going to be Drake's year is a pretty safe bet. He had a huge year in 2009, as he embarked on a world tour and was the lyrical mastermind behind Billboard's "Hot Rap Song" of the year. What's amazing is the fact that Drake has never even released a studio album. That's going to change in the near future, as Thank Me Later is expected to be released within the next couple of months. Drake is going to make a lot of money and create a lot of buzz this year, but this shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.

What might surprise some people is that I think J. Cole is going to have an even bigger year than Drake. Don't know who J. Cole is? I can guarantee that you will soon. J. Cole has absolutely everything going in his favor: He graduated magnum cum laude from St. John's University, was the first person signed to Jay-Z's new music publishing and entertainment company, Roc Nation, and is a lyrical monster. The fact that J. Cole has Jay-Z in his corner all but guarantees that he will be a mainstream, money making machine within a year. Jay is the Operah of hip-hop in the sense the anyone he promotes is going to get a ridiculous amount of attention.

Perpetual Wackness
I won't lie, there are a lot of bad rappers. I mean, really, really bad. In the words of the particularly horrid Gucci Mane, "I'm the gingerbread man, I'm the gingerbread man, I'm the gingerbread man, I'm the gingerbread man." Now, what exactly does this mean? I don't know. I don't think Gucci Mane knows. It's this type of music that's killing hip-hop, yet somehow Gucci Mane is extremely popular.

Listening to Gucci Mane instead of guys like Jay-Z and Nas would be like opting to watch Gigli instead of The Godfather. Yet this is exactly what thousands of hip-hop fans have decided to do. As a result, an increasing number of absolutely horrible rappers will continue to gain popularity and spew ridiculous lyrics that make no sense. 2010 will serve as an all-time low for hip-hop in terms of the quality of music we'll see.

The Demise of Weezy
Lil Wayne's The Carter III was the top selling album of 2008. Wayne fully took advantage of the album's popularity in 2009 by embarking on a wildly successful world tour. Realistically, Wayne couldn't of had a better year in 2009. Unfortunately, I don't think things will ever be the same for him. Frankly--and mark my words--I truly believe Lil Wayne will be dead within the next 12 months. You might think I'm crazy, and maybe I am, but the fact is that he's living a lifestyle that simply isn't conducive to surviving past the age of 30.

For starters, he is a habitual abuser of codeine cough syrup. Regardless of what Wayne's drinking, he seems to mix it with this highly addicted syrup. The problem is that abusing codeine syrup can easily result in respiratory depression and cardiac arrest. In fact, several rappers have already died from abusing the drug. If this isn't enough, Wayne constantly smokes weed, has consistently found himself in legal trouble over the last 12 months, and has four children with four different women. There is simply too much going against Weezy, and I think he's on the verge of a Heath Ledger-esque fallout.