..This is what you waited all year for, the hardcore....
KRS-ONE "MC's Act Like They Don't Know (1995)"





I really can't place my finger on what is the true definition of hardcore. I think what makes it even more astounding is, what makes people drawn to it. The following is webster's definition of the word hardcore:

hard-core also hard·core (härdkôr, -kr)adj.

• Intensely loyal; die-hard: a hard-core secessionist; a hard-core golfer.
• Stubbornly resistant to improvement or change: hard-core poverty.
• Extremely graphic or explicit: hard-core pornography.

In the realm of hip-hop music, I think the final part of the definition fits well. However it can mean so many other things. I will try to bring some clarity to this idea. I think to say an artist is hardcore, does not mean the obvious. How many drugs his/she has sold, how many guns & money, etc., they have in possession. Those things are more of material possession in which every human being has the potential to attain. Instead hardcore is more of a presence, almost like an aura. When a person speaks, people will tend to be affected. That voice tends to move people, and create vigor, enlightenment.
When an emcee speaks with that presence using his dexterity and command of vocabulary, that makes the emcee hard-core. The content in which he/she speaks is again, connected to the definition.

The other day I heard a posse cut. Take jadakiss, beanie sigel, fabulous, sheek lock all on one track with a basic beat. The premise is that there lyrics are going to ride out the beat. All the aforementioned emcees, have never lived up to any hype they have attained. While they have a distinct wordplay and wit about them, there content all mimic each other. It was as if, they all were saying the same thing, the same verse. One of my friends, said that the song was hardcore. I very much doubt it was. I would say take a young Ice cube and Kool G Rap together on one track. That would be hardcore, for they would speak in such fierce command you would sit there and listen.

It used to be about hood and tim's....now it is about blouses and skirts....Do you know the meaning of hardcore?

Mr.Sandman