EPMD co-founder and super-producer Erick Sermon doesn’t want to hear about a “comeback” for New York hip-hop. The rap veteran was dismissive of the suggestion during a recent interview and he explained that people just aren’t paying attention.
“I don’t like that thing, that, ‘New York is back thing,’” he said in DX Daily clip. “Everybody says, ‘I’m bringing New York back.’ I don’t like that. New York never went nowhere [sic]. You have underground people, people are making hip- hop … They all over the place but it just ain’t mainstream and dope enough to go on radio ‘cause of how radio is. They never did that. There’s no bringing New York back. You gotta do what you have to do.”
Sermon went on to offer his perspective as a New York native who’s been based in Atlanta for more than 20 years. Sermon believes that Atlanta hip-hop artists are focused on the fact that Atlanta is prominent and have little use for New York’s hip-hop legacy, which he seems to regard as “the culture” of hip-hop.
“People know me for being in Atlanta,” he said. “I’ve been there for half of my career. When the group broke up, from ‘92 on I’ve been in Georgia. I used to watch them look at TV and be like, ‘Yo, why [are] they doing that?’ They don’t wanna see us doing them. They like us for what we did but then we end up doing them and they lost respect. They’ll laugh in your face but they laughing, saying, ‘Look at them. They [are] doing us and we used to watch them.’ That’s what they’re saying. They [are] never gonna let this go if it was up to them. They [are] laughing, happy. The Hip Hop Awards in Atlanta every year. They loving this s—. ‘Who give a f— about the culture and the history? We got it now.’ That’s how they feel.”
