Outside the Lines With Rap Genius
Sene Excerpt #1 -- New Brooklyn Rappers
SameOldShawn: It’s like something - I just can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s something about this current generation of Brooklyn rappers that - I notice some commonalities. Like I said, I don’t think I have the vocabulary to talk about what it is, but between like, you, and Skyzoo, and even younger kids like Joey Bada$$, I feel like there’s some sort of commonality. What, if anything, do you think kind of bands together this batch of Brooklyn rappers?

Sene: I think people just got tired of hearing that “New York is dead” stuff, and so it became less about shitting on people. ‘Cause Brooklyn’s one of those places where I love it to death, but there’s parts about it I hate. I would be lying to said I don’t. Like I hated that everyone in other places would be like, “Oh, they’re from here? They’re holding it down? They got a fanbase? Well then, I’m going to hold them down, ‘cause that’s pretty dope, yo.” But here was all about like “Fuck so-and-so. They’re from the same street or like they’re off the street,” where it’s like “Oh, fuck so-and-so.” It was, like, the most stupid reason. I found myself checking people all the time. My friends, they would be like “Oh, fuck so and so,” but I’d be like “Why? Why fuck so-and-so? Why screw him? Why? What has he done to you? What, you know, what is your beef with”....you know what I mean?

SameOldShawn: Yeah

Sene: So with that I said, I feel like right now, people are just proud to be where they’re from, and they the commonality is that we’re Brooklynites. We love where we’re from. We’d love to change certain things about it. But at the end of the day, we can’t change certain things about what we’ve been through. We can only change what we’re doing and that’s what people are doing. We’re about representing it now to the fullest