What do you consider good hip hop?

I know this is more of an artist website than a blog, but I like writing. So here is where I'm getting at.


       I noticed that for a while now I've started slowly trying to go out of my way to make hip hop that makes people go 'Holy shit!' but isn't really what I feel natural doing. I understand that it's good to push your comfort zone, but I've learned that if I feel I'm not going in the right direction, I don't care what anyone else thinks. This is why I love being an emcee. It's such a growing experience as I've come to discover, in so many ways. You learn to be more consistent, responsible, become more aware of self, everything. On top of that, your vocabulary grows, your sense of rhythm is honed, and you meet good people. As far as it's taken me today, I'm so glad I've done it this far. Even when I still got people telling me I'm not the best and 'Sorry, but I don't even think you're that good.' I don't care. Rhymes make my world spin, that's all I care about.


        Either way, I just feel like a lot of people are good people, they're just blind to it. I think it's something you have to fully immerse yourself in to see but, as an emcee, I've really realized how much more hip hop is than lyricism. Than flow. Than message. It's more than that. It's a movement in itself. It's got a heartbeat in itself. It's hard to explain to someone who's not an emcee and, from the outside looking in, all they hear are the technicalities. I used to look at it that way until I got serious about it, and now I see it from a much wider standpoint than I used to. It's not just about the words. It's not just about the flow. It's about the energy. It's about that.. pop, that is only audible to the trained ear. It's about the goosebumps you get when they slide over a sick syllable cut up. It's about so much more than just rhyming 'intricate' with 'exquisiteness' with 'metaphysicist' and making it all make sense. We're at the point in hip hop where most every decent emcee can do that. Before, any emcee who could do that would blow my mind.. Now, it takes something else to give someone that "dope as fuck" label. A lot more of something else.


So, I suppose my question is, for all the hip hop heads, what do you see as good hip-hop? And I don't mean give me the conventional, "I like a dude with message, good flow, and wordplay." I mean REALLY, what SPEAKS to you in hip-hop?