The Who were one of those bands that helped redefine music in the ’60s and ’70s, but that was fifty years ago. Just because they’re rock icons doesn’t mean they’re overly in touch with the sounds of today, as frontman Roger Daltrey recently made painfully clear with his opinions on hip-hop.
Speaking with Rolling Stone, Daltrey was asked what he thought about Kanye West. Saying he only encountered West’s music after he performed at a British music festival, the singer remarked, “It’s kind of meaningless to me, to be honest with you. I like some of the rhythms of rap. But [it] hasn’t gone anywhere from the first record [that] ever came out with those kind of rhythms, has it?”
In other words, he thinks “Rapper’s Delight” is essentially the same thing as, say, Kendrick Lamar’s “DNA.”.
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Interviewer Andy Greene then asked directly if Daltrey meant he doesn’t see rap as an evolving art form. “No, I don’t think. Has hip-hop evolved? I don’t think it has at all,” he responded.
Daltrey’s latest solo album, As Long As I Have You, came out the same day as Kanye’s ye. Daltrey described the record as “a return to the very beginning.” Ya know, like reverse evolution.
He did have some praise one specific hip-hop artist, however: “I do think Eminem is still one of the most creative people in that whole arena. He’s fabulous. I love him.”
Elsewhere in the article, Daltrey said he’s “bloody bored shitless with” singing “Won’t Get Fooled Again” and revealed he’d be releasing a book called Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite in October.