Veteran MC Xzibit recently spoke about the current state of Hip-Hop at a panel discussion on Thursday (September 14) in Santa Monica, CA, and TMZ was on hand to capture the discussion, which also featured Layzie Bone. X shared his thoughts about where the culture and genre currently is, and where he'd like to see it head in the future.
“Hip Hop is huge,” he said. “And it made so many people so much money, they think anybody can do it. Everyone feels that Hip Hop is so accessible that anybody can do it. It’s become a mockery of itself. It’s become too accessible. There was a time that there was somebody that you had to go into their office and get an investment into your career. Now, if you just have a laptop and WiFi, you can be an artist … People do themselves a disservice by trying to participate in that.”
He said rappers should've unionized, like writers in other fields and mediums.
“We should have unionized," he said. "We should have had some kind of union, we shoulda had a board, we shoulda organized ourselves. ‘Cause right now, you know, becoming 50 years later we still don’t own shit. So until we own it, until we control it, until we have a say who gets to fuckin’ call themselves this and call themselves that — like everybody else — it’s gonna continue to spiral out of control. And that’s why we’re not on the Billboard [charts], because nobody is in the pilot seat guiding us to where we supposed to go. This is a billion dollar industry! But until we take the focus and we clean up our own backyard, it’s not going to have the same respect it that’s it garnished in the past.”
Beyond sharing his thoughts about Hip-Hop and artist empowerment, Xzibit is set to launch a new weekly podcast called Lasagna Ganja. The weekly podcast will delve into the world of cannabis, with Xzibit co-hosting alongside weekly cannabis advocate Tammy The Cannabis Cutie. The series, which will feature reviews of selected products, will also "delve into all the layers of the multifaceted cannabis world, from the complicated history and misconceptions of cannabis and the plant’s influence and impact on culture, music, entertainment and more, to the latest trends, scientific breakthroughs, and political issues." The series comes from DCP Entertainment and will launch on Oct. 5.
Watch Xzbit during the panel discussion here.
