Rap is not dead. In fact, I'm enjoying it more than ever. But I'm also enjoying it in a much different way. I haven't bought a CD since The Black Album. Instead, I subscribe to podcasts (Authentic Shit, The Let Out, Fat Beats, Radioclit) and hit up the blogs (Catchdubs, Discobelle, Cocaine Blunts), which exposes me to a broad range of the latest shit. The purists might hate, but this is a pretty good way to listen to rap. The album concept is by and large dead, and good riddance, I say. Aside from a choice few (Jigga, Clipse, OutKast), I'll take an artist's top 30% and disregard the rest any day.
But I suppose none of that says much about the quality of music these days. So: I think it's pretty damn good. However, I think the producer has definitely eclipsed the MC. If the beat is hot, all I ask is that the MC comes with energy, a compelling voice, and doesn't rhyme the same words. The superior tracks have both the beats and the rhymes, but I'd rather hear JaRule over a crazy Just Blaze track than Lil Wayne or Jay-Z over some wack 80s 808 beat. But that's just me, and I'm rambling. The point: hearing the latest TI banger gets just as hyped now as the Low End Theory did when I was a dorky 9th grader. Draw your own conclusion.
I think Nas' point is that hip-hop has changed so much from its roots that it really no longer qualifies as "hip-hop." I still haven't decided if I agree, but the sound isn't going anywhere. "Hip-Hop is Dead" is all about rapping over samples. It's more a political thing, I think.
More later. Maybe.
Yeah, Hip hop, is dead, The PIMP mind kill the hip hop In usa... in other countries its maintain REAL, Conciente u kno? D;
Hip-Hop IS dead you guys. Hip-Hop is culture and form of ground breaking music and self expression with elements that consisted of the elements of graffiti art, DJing, MCing, and breaking. Today Hip-Hop is considered to be dead in the mainstream because so-called mainstream Hip-Hop doesn't have the elements of hip-hop and have no meaning.
The stuff on MTV and the radio can't be called Hip-Hop because the lyrics don't have any meaning or self expression. Wack artists today just rap about their shopping lists and other bullshit. There are no more DJs making a prescence since artists today think they can manage without them. Without a DJ there are no scratches and cuts. Not much graffiti art is being shown in videos. Artists such as 50 Cent, Nelly, Chingy, J-Kwon, P. Diddy, Cash Money Millionaries lack the 4 elements since their lyrics are ridiculous (no MCing skills), they don't have any DJ presence in their tracks (notice that so-called hip-hop today lacks scratches and cuts), and not much graffiti art is being expressed.
The point of this defintion is to show that MTV/Radio mainstream Bling Rappers should be categorized as Hip-Pop artists, not Hip-Hop artists. (The word 'Hip-Pop' is from MC Binary Star by the way)
Hip-Hop Music is: Run DMC, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gang Starr, Wu-Tang Clan, Pharcyde, Hieroglyphics, Aceyalone, Mos Def, Talib Kweli, Public Enemy, Common, Mobb Deep, Nas, Rakim, and many more old school and underground acts.
Hip-Pop Music is: P. Diddy, Ja Rule, Nelly, 50 Cent, G-Unit, Cash Money Millionaries, and other mainstream money making oriented acts.
Commenting by HaloScan
