Archives of August 2015 (4)

Italy's famous writer Umberto Eco stated it clearly in his books: innovation and novelty are recent concepts. They are also overvalued. What people enjoy, at the end of the day, is their complete opposite: it is the recurrence, the repetition, the perpetual return to the same forms. What they like is the infinite variation of one single pattern. It is obvious with movies, where cycles, sequels and reboots are becoming the norm with blockbusters. And it is also visible with rap music, with the continuous release of mixtapes offering to the audience what it already knows, instead of new artistic manifestos. And the rapper who understood this mechanism the best, the one who used it in the most systematic way, is obviously Gucci Mane.