Canibus Is Wack?

Since when?

It seems that one can’t bring up the name “Canibus” in any hip-hop setting nowadays without getting showered with hate. Not only will the supporter be ridiculed, but the rapper himself will be insulted, usually out of ignorance. Well, in my opinion, Canibus is an incredibly talented rapper, and I’d even venture to say that he’s one of the best. Let’s look at the facts before I delve any further:

– He has released thirteen studio albums, and he’s only been around since 1998. That’s more material than most rappers release who have been around for a lot longer.

– One of his albums has gone gold. This isn’t much in today’s hip-hop climate, but you can’t say he doesn’t sell any records.

– He’s been bigged up and complimented by several great MCs including Eminem, KRS-One, Common, Vinnie Paz, J. Cole and more than once by Rakim, who is considered by many to the greatest MC of all time. No small beans there.

– One of his albums, Rip The Jacker, received unanimous praise and is regarded as a must own hip-hop classic by most who’ve heard it.

– He’s been on tracks with, and arguably outshined such great emcees as Redman, LL Cool J, Rakim, Common, Mos Def, K-Rino, AZ, Keith Murray, Vinnie Paz, KRS-One, Kool G Rap, Ras Kass, Killah Priest, Chino XL, Ruck & Rock of Heltah Skeltah, and many more.

– To this day, his diss track, “2nd Round Knockout” is considered to be one of the greatest battle records of all time.

– He invented what’s known as the “infinite” rhyme scheme, or, more specifically, a method in which he writes several mirroring verses that are infinitely mixable. More on that some other time.

I’ll stop it there. There’s more I could say, but: seems like quite a track record for a wack MC huh? Yes, indeed it is. I’ve always been baffled by the fact that hip-hop listeners tend to rub the man’s name in the dirt, despite his contributions to hip-hop. I’ve boiled it down to a few possible reasons.

Why People Dislike Canibus:

– They simply have never heard any Canibus music. They listen to what others say about him and assume that it’s true without giving him a fair chance. This is probably the most common reason.

– He has beefed with their favorite rapper. To this day, hip-hop fans tend to have a groupie mentality, where if someone disses their favorite rapper, they automatically have to dislike that person. Even all these years later, some people, particularly Eminem fans, still can’t get over it. They’re the main ones perpetuating these falsehoods. This is nothing against Eminem, I’m a big fan, but against a certain group of his fans.

– Cognitive dissonance. This is from experience. I have felt this about plenty of rappers who were better than I had expected. Canibus was one of them, when I first listened to him many years ago. You stumble upon a Canibus song, after hearing all of the bad things about him. You hear the intense level of lyricism displayed, so you attempt to downplay it or justify why it’s bad in any way you can. Especially if you have a reason to (such as the previous example, he has beefed with your favorite rapper). It’s a common phenomenon in psychology.

Those are, I’d say the three main reasons why people dislike Canibus. If you’d notice, none of them are related to his music or lyrics. What are these “bad things” or “falsehoods” that I’ve referred to you asked? Well, I’ve compiled a list of common misconceptions about Canibus, often created by the latter two groups listed in the examples above, and will attempt to address them as best I can.

Common Misconceptions About Canibus:

Canibus is a one-sided battle rapper.

This couldn’t be more wrong. If you were to purchase one of his albums, particularly one of his more recent ones, you would find that there are actually very few lyrics that are related to battling. One album, 2000 BC, did contain mostly battle lyrics, but primarily because that’s what the fans wanted at the time. But that’s one album out of thirteen. The majority of his lyrics from the past five years or so have been heavily metaphorical and lyrical content about spiritual enlightenment, peace, and introspection about his career. He’s had deep tracks, social commentaries, punchline tracks, battle tracks, storytelling tracks, concept tracks, homage tracks, humorous satirical tracks, even a hypothetical post-apocalyptic track. So I’d say he’s actually one of the more versatile rappers in the industry.

Eminem murdered Canibitch!

Now this is probably the most common one, and undoubtedly the most upsetting. Firstly, you show your obvious bias in the argument by referring to him as “Canibitch” (which isn’t even your own joke by the way), then you show that you are basing your opinion on a rapper on who they’ve beefed with, something completely unrelated to music or rapping. That aside, let me put the nail in this coffin right now. A full on beef has never occurred between Eminem and Canibus. There was a lot of tension and a lot of subliminal shots thrown back and forth between the two between 2000 and 2003 which culminated in a diss track by Eminem entitled “Canibitch”. Firstly, the track gives off a silly vibe and he never really tears into Canibus the way he has into past opponents. Secondly, the track was never meant to be released. It was likely recorded as a joke, but was leaked by a DJ while Canibus was serving in the army, and couldn’t reply if he wanted to. Glad that’s all out in the open.

Canibus can rap, but he can’t make music. He has a weak discography.

Now, this one’s a bit more difficult to refute, as music is subjective, but again, I’ve done the best that I could. Like I mentioned earlier, his album Rip The Jacker has received universal praise among listeners, so that should be proof enough that he is capable of releasing a good album. But if you’re not convinced, I’ve taken the liberty of compiling all of the aggregate critical scores (source: wikipedia) of his albums and collating them. They are as follows, scored out of 100 for precision (I converted all of the review scores listed. For example, 3/5 stars would be 60/100):

65, Can-I-Bus

65, 2000 BC

45, C True Hollywood Stories

78, Mic Club: The Curriculum

89, Rip The Jacker

50, Mind Control

50, Hip-Hop 4 $ale

72, For Whom The Beat Tolls

75, Melatonin Magik

73, C of Tranquility

70, Lyrical Law

If you’d notice, there are a few duds. If you average all of these out, you’ll get a 66/100, which isn’t bad for an artist with so many albums at all. However, C True Hollywood Stories was meant to be a parody album, and Mind Control was released without the consent of Canibus as a collection of recordings from an old label, Gladiator Records. If you omit those two based off of their validity as official albums, you’re left with a score of 70/100, even better. Bear in mind that they also take into account things like production, so all of them (besides CTHS, the parody album) have the same level of strong lyricism that he’s known for.

Canibus fell off. He was good back in the day, but he sucks now.

This Fallacy will be addressed in two parts. Firstly, the music aspect, and secondly the lyrical aspect. As you’ll notice from the above chart, his last FOUR solo albums (we’ll reach as far back as 2007) have gotten at the very least an aggregate critical score of 70/100. You may also notice that he’s been a lot more consistent as of late. Instead of dropping an 8/10 here, a 4/10 there, he’s consistently dropping 4 star albums. That takes care of the music. Lyrically, he’s better than he’s ever been in my opinion. He used to have a more aggressive flow, which carried the lyrics further a lot of the time. On paper, however, in 2012, his lyrics are both more meaningful and thought provoking, as well as containing more complex rhyme schemes, wordplay, metaphors, and imagery than ever before.

Canibus’ voice is too gravelly and harsh, he’ll never appeal to a mainstream audience with a voice like that.

This one isn’t even all that common, so it’s hardly even worth addressing, but I’ve got one word for you: DMX. DMX has one of the most gravelly rap voices in the industry and yet was one of the highest selling rappers of all time. End of that.

Those are all of the fallacies commonly perpetuated about Canibus, and why they’re wrong. Now, don’t misinterpret me. Canibus certainly isn’t for everyone. His audience largely consists of mostly hardcore underground hip-hop fans due to his fierce voice and heavy lyrical content. His music isn’t radio friendly, and you won’t likely catch him making a love song or anything like that. He does, however hold a spot as one of the best lyricists in hip-hop, and for good reason. He has arguably the largest vocabulary in rap (and most likely, music in general), a versatile list of subject matter, an aggressive, on beat flow, some of the most vivid metaphors and imagery in rap, and a solid discography. I’m not asking that you regard him as great, or even like him. I’m asking that you curb the hate. Stop throwing the man’s name in the dirt. No matter who you are, I think you can agree that there are people in hip-hop who deserve your contempt a lot more than Canibus.

For my conclusion, I will take a brief look at the word “hater” and describe how it’s relevant.

Redefining “Hater”:

Most members of the hip-hop community (rappers AND fans) have used the word “hater” at one time or another. The accepted definition of the word is: someone who degrades another person’s work out of jealousy or ill-placed dislike. “Haters” are often the objects of a lot of rappers’ lines. They are told to be disregarded, and are said to be unimportant. The people who are often labeled as haters however, usually do not fit the definition. More often than not, a “hater” is simply a critic. Someone who looks at an artist’s music from an objective perspective and says that it’s not very, good, often rightfully so. In my opinion, this newfound inability of rappers to accept criticism is taking hip-hop in the wrong direction. Does all of this have a point? Yes, yes it does. Throughout this article, I’ve described the bad things said wrongly about Canibus and the people who commonly spread them. Now, who fits the definition of “hater” more, critics, or these people? Next time you find yourself throwing Canibus’ name in the dirt on an internet forum or YouTube comment, keep all of the information presented here in mind and ask yourself this: “Am I a hater?”

-Joseph Kiley