Wu-Tang Clan's GZA/Genius, a.k.a. Gary Grice, has a 7th studio album Liquid Swords II slated for release this fall. Given that this album's 15-year-old predecessor is one of my top 10 favorite LPs of all time, the surprisingly top-shelf execution of fellow Clan member Raekwon's Cuban Linx sequel last year and that the RZA is overseeing the entire project, I'm a bit excited to hear what GZA comes up with.

I'm guessing I'd be extremely hard-pressed to find anyone under the age of 20 who feels the same way. I could scour any one Chicago public high school full of rap fans and likely not find a single individual checking for an album from a 43-year-old dude named Gary.

Here at the beginning of the century's second decade, many of the rappers I enjoyed in my youth are either on the "wrong" side of 40 or fast approaching, and many are still recording albums. Method Man, the youngest member of the Wu, is 39. Jay-Z is 40. Dr. Dre is 45! Ice Cube, 41, still manages to s**t out a album here and there between writing, producing and starring in terrible, family-friendly movie fare; I don't know how he has the stones to release any gangsta material after gracing celluloid with his nauseating, forced ghetto bonhomie.

Loyal readers of this column know that I consider myself a crusty, out-of-touch old fart when it comes to contemporary hip-hop: I'm a loyal devotee to the art and culture, but largely from the perspective of the way things used to be.

When I listened to hip-hop as a teenager, I viewed it as music for the youth and assumed that reaching one's 30s would preclude them from appreciating the music in any capacity. While I can't conceive a force that would prevent me from abandoning an art and culture I've sworn devotion to by the ink on my right forearm in just a year (I write this column seven days outside of my 29th birthday), my tastes haven't exactly evolved much in the past decade. The collection of rap CDs in my truck is, more often than not, anachronistic and obscure; I enjoy lesser-known acts that evoke memories of what I was bumping in high-school, and little to no representation of the current Top 40 is ever in rotation.

But can one ever really get too old to appreciate rap music? (lyrically anyway - a good beat knows no generational boundaries) Moreover, is it appropriate that many of these older rappers are still churning out new material? A good R&B artist can put out records about lovemaking and heartache until he starts farting dust (see: Ronald Isley). But I think that a rapper's hubris - a veritable mainstay of the genre - doesn't hold up well as he/she continues to age.

When I was younger, I embraced the bang-bang, my-d**k-is-bigger-than-yours aesthetic of hip-hop. But as I witness all these rappers get older, sire children and sprout gray hairs - and as I get some age under my own belt - I think of a popular nugget from Shawn Carter: "We don't believe you, you need more people." In fact, Jay is a perfect example of someone who rapped at his finest with something to prove 15 years ago, yet can't rap about s**t in 2010 that's believable to me outside of yacht vacations in Cabo San Lucas, using Benjamins as fireplace kindling and coconut oil-massaging Beyonce's ever-vacillating booty.

I want to hear more records with older, seasoned artists rapping about things relevant to them now. I'd love to hear an entire record from Scarface dedicated to his family, or an EP from Nas about the decline and end of a marriage, as well as the subsequent parting with alimony and the inevitable train of pros working to "be there" for him. As lousy as Kanye West's Auto-Tune catastrophe 808s and Heartbreak was, I respected that he dedicated a whole album to blubbering about a breakup. I also appreciate the fact that The Roots' newest album How I Got Over was created as a knocking-on-the-door-of-40 reflection of life to date (Questlove is 39 and Black Thought is just a couple months behind him). Those of us trying to figure out life's little bull paddies as we go along appreciate such introspective fare in our hip-hop.

Alas, most of that brand of rap doesn't sell, so you have the Waka Flocka Flames (age 23) and Nicki Minajs (age 25) bringing up the rear. I spend ample time hating on these artists without acknowledging their place in the genre, and upon further reflection, I realize this makes me the crotchety old bastard I always assumed my dad was when he made me turn off my Boot Camp Clik records as a youngster. It's apropos that most chart-topping rappers these days are my age or younger: historically, youth rule the airwaves. Problem is, I respect so few of them as formidable talents (Blu and Lupe Fiasco are a couple exceptions) that I defer to my old collection more often than I'd like.

As I've written before, a large part of being a hip-hop fan requires turning off part of your brain and accepting much of the foolishness you hear. So as long as Raekwon's pudgy, 40-year-old ass is still dropping heat rock verses, I'll tune in and (try to) forget the fact that we're both growing old.