''It Really Takes One Artist To Come In...''
4:30PM ET July 24th, 2012
Contributor : Martin James
A Rocky Williform Company

Rapper 50 Cent shared his thoughts on the current state of New York City hip hop in a recent interview with V.I.P. The hip hop star said that things are better than some may believe for hip hop's hometown, he believes that strong rap crews are needed to push the Big Apple back to the forefront.

"I think it's good, I think we're in a good state now," Fif said. "I just think a lot of the artists are hovering under the older crews that worked already when they should be creating their new crew. ... Of course you need one person that's really a spearhead, when one break, the rest of them get a shot. Without [Lil] Wayne, there's no Young Money. Once one artist gets over the wall, that brand is cool. Wiz [Khalifa,] you see he's got a group of artists around him now. It really takes one artist to come in and have that song take off and then have that ability to continue to create that material."

"There's positives and negatives to keeping artists real close to you," Fif added. "You got artists that become complacent because they're on the stage in front of 60,000 people, they ain't writing like they need to get out of the hood. They writing like, 'Okay, tomorrow I'm going to do something. I got four bars, that might even work.' [laughs] You gotta write like you really want it. ... The positive parts is when they're hungry or competing, trying to get to that point, they're striving."