Changing Realities

Currently listening to J Cole The Warm Up but then this came on my ipod. If you read this blog you'll know I got a lot of time for Fashawn. So I was listening to When She Calls best track on the album btw. And it made me think, when did surreal beats and abstract samples, so slow they're almost acapella beats become hiphop.

Kanye West came through with the samples back on College Dropout, and slow jams have always been around. And the abstractness can be found throughout indie hiphop, so I guess that can exclude Blu, Fashawn and Sene.  But who would've thought mellow drawls (outside of the south and the west coast style of the dee-oh-double-gee) would become not only  popular in the underground but mainstream; Drake's Thank Me Later so laidback, mellow, jaaaaam, and the surreal theme runs through the whole album (and is even more concentrated in So Far Gone). Not to say it hasn't been done before Common - The Light etc. but never has it been so mainstream and become so much the thing to do.....

Question is do you miss the days of A Tribe Called Quest or happy that Slum Village/J Dilla style jaaaaamed hiphop is slowly making it more mainstream? Or is Drake just synthy overproduced souless music, lemme know what you think.......