Stop The Homage: A Commentary On Nostalgia Baiting

Last week, I made a quick opinion post regarding my thoughts on the underground’s trend of “paying homage.” While I stated that there’s nothing inherently wrong with paying homage to an artist you love, I also argued it should be done tastefully and not in a lazy way. While looking at some examples to write that post, I watched a clip of the new KidsTakeOver interview with Zukenee, in which he says the paying homage trend is “all tied in with” nostalgia baiting. While I also do not think it is terrible to incorporate nostalgia into your art, it also should not go without its criticism. I thought this trend was worth exploring in a more in-depth post, as I don’t see it talked about as much online as homage paying.

The underground rap scene is currently obsessed with 2000s and 2010s imagery. But first, how is nostalgia baiting defined within music? There isn’t a definition in Webster’s Dictionary, but I feel that Google’s piece of shit AI thing gives a good definition: “Nostalgia baiting in music is a trend where artists heavily sample or interpolate old, popular songs and aesthetics from past decades to evoke sentimental memories and attract an audience.” Obviously, sampling and recycling are the foundation of rap music, but if someone remakes a very popular mainstream album cover or uses a Top 40 2010s song as a beat, that would usually be regarded as nostalgia baiting.

Nostalgia baiting is usually pretty strongly disliked in every other avenue of entertainment. Many people are fed up with Hollywood’s reboots, remakes, franchise spinoffs and sequels that nowadays it’s a big deal to see a good movie in theaters that is not based on a preexisting intellectual property. Television does it too: Amazon made a “Lord of the Rings” spinoff show that loyal fans hated, and HBO is gearing up to release a “Harry Potter” show that is supposed to last ten years. Although it is annoying and of no interest to many people who would consider themselves to have “good taste,” these are properties that almost always guarantee a return on investment. It is much safer financially for Hollywood to make a new “Superman” than to greenlight the potential next big thing. This is why we now have so many new “Jurassic World” and “Ghostbusters” movies.

Nostalgia feels good, and that’s why it’s targeted in marketing and entertainment. “Stranger Things” was initially such a huge success because, although it had a good story, that story was very reminiscent of plotlines from ’80s movies, and the whole thing took place in the ’80s itself, meaning it was full of references and products from that era. It gives you a nice fuzzy feeling to remember when you were a small child and your life didn’t suck nearly as bad as it does now. However, most people found it pretty annoying and cringe less than a decade ago when millennials would not stop talking about or referencing the ’90s. “Nickelodeon, brooooo, we went outside and drank from the hose, brooooo.” We all ripped on them back then, but now everyone is comfortable constantly referencing that colorful iPod dancing ad and talking about missing Frutiger Aero. Not that anyone cares, but in my opinion, it is much more cringe to suck off one of the largest corporations in the world than it is to like “Rugrats.”

So who are some of the underground names that are frequently cited as incorporating nostalgic imagery or sound? Well, you’ve got Feng, Phreshboyswag, Fakemink, and a lot of the other UK artists too, for some reason (maybe it’s just a fascination with American pop culture). Xaviersobased incorporates 2000s skate culture into his videos and music. You have someone like Myspacemark, who people frequently accuse of nostalgia baiting, and I would also classify the rappers who pay homage as using nostalgia. This means Osamason, Ninevicious, Apollo Red, 1300SAINT, etc. The focus of this piece is not to call people out or point fingers, so I don’t feel the need to say who I personally think does nostalgia tastefully. You can discuss among yourselves who you think utilizes nostalgia well and who is blatantly “baiting.”

There is no such thing as an original idea. Every piece of art ever has been inspired by something else, and you will drive yourself insane if you’re an artist trying to create something entirely original, because it is impossible. It is great to be inspired by and to incorporate aesthetics and ideas of the past; people do not have a problem with that. People have a problem when you’re an artist who relies very heavily on nostalgia in hopes of luring people in so you can blow up or make money. This nostalgia can also be used to make sure people continue listening. These practices subconsciously come off as greedy, lazy or inauthentic to many (consider what I said before about Hollywood’s sequels and reboots as being a safe bet). A few people were pretty pissed about that last homage post, and I’m curious to see if this topic strikes a similar nerve. What do you think of this phenomenon or the label of “nostalgia baiting”?