Melle Mel Says Street Culture Ruined Hip Hop Music

Hip Hop pioneer Melle Mel has gone viral after making the statement that Eminem wouldn’t be ranked in Billboard’s Top 5 of their Top 50 Rappers of All Time if he wasn’t white. Mel has doubled down on his stance and now believes that the street culture in Hip Hop’s current landscape has contributed to the decline of the music quality.

“I would say this, yesterday’s music is better than today’s music […] for 20 years, they’ve been talking about selling dope and killing people. Where’s the comparison?” said the 61-year-old music legend. He added, “You would think that everything that’s going on in the hood is proper. That’s not the life that was meant for us, and actually, we deserve a better life than this, and we deserve better music than what they giving ‘em right now.”