With all the talk of bling bling, hoes, money and cars, do you think hip hop is dead or just taking a new direction?


I think all that nonsense talk is NOT hip hop but rather pop music and so on inspired by fat cheeked execs who force feed ignorant youth music videos with scantily clad whores. I think MTV is a farce and should be removed from the air. Hip hop has diminished however and maybe it's best for hip hop to stay underground, but then again hip hop is a struggle to rise so maybe it's time real hip hop ousted the new Chingy CD in audio players everywhere.

Just my two cents. :p

I wish... :(

The sooner the better, but what will come next... *cringe* The generation gap widens...

It isn't dead. There are always interesting and promising rap stars emerging...Kanye West being the recent one. Check out his album "College dropout"...good stuff. Outcast is great and there is always Notorious B.I.G to rely on for good hip-hop needs.

Good Lord! *pukes*

Good lord is right. How dare people like something you do not.....damn right baffling ain't it.

It's usually ignorant people who only listen to the rotting, so called *hip hop* I described in my first post that denounce it without batting an eye.

Let them have a listen to Nas, Talib Kweli, Scarface, A Tribe Called Quest... and see what the real message is.

Let them have a listen to Nas, Talib Kweli, Scarface, A Tribe Called Quest... and see what the real message is.

Ahhh sweet. These guys are killer Mcs.

Most hip hop is garbage music, and so, it'll probably die with the ghetto's before evolving into something else. Don't forget that it has some pretty deep roots.

Outkast, and a few others are the exception. I've liked outkast for years, since 'Mrs Jackson'. Brilliant song.

Oh, are the ghetto's going somewhere? A final solution perhaps?

Believe it or not, I've never seen a ghetto. They're rare in Canada. When politics in the USA take a turn for the better, ghetto's will begin to dissolve. And so will hip hop.

Nope.

Hip hop will evolve, not "dissolve".

Right into the suburbs in a neighborhood near YOU.

True hip hop is being basterdized with this crap they call hip hop. I wish they would let it stay in the underground instead of trying to push this crap onto the public as real hip hop. I don't like any of hip hop or rap when they talk about murdering women and children and others that get in their way. Sick shit being broadcast, very sick.

I don't like much hip-hop, but that's because I haven't looked far past what they decide I should see on MTV or, Canada's equivalent MuchMusic. That stuff, as mentioned already, is garbage with a few exceptions. However, I have been introduced to a few groups or artists that I enjoy. A Tribe Called Quest is pretty good, and the Vancouver group The Sweatshop Union is good, IMO.

However, since MTV's hip-hop has become so commercial, it won't die. It's making too many people too much money, and they will milk it for all it's worth. People are stupid, and you can convince them to buy all sorts of stupid shit if you are good at marketing.

Every new sub-genre of rock and roll (which itself is merely a surprisingly durable sub-genre of jazz) eventually runs out of new motifs at about the same time that the "mainstream" of rock and roll (whatever the frell that is) discovers a way to embrace it.

Many of us older folks who can't quite grasp the subtleties of "urban" music (sarcasm intended) tend to regard hip-hop as nothing more than lite rap anyway. We've had metal-rap since Faith No More, industrial rap, dub-rap, now Toby Keith even gives us country-rap.

But more to the point, rap has been folded back into rock to the extent that rapping and melodious singing trade off parts or even act as counterpoint to each other, e.g. Meredith Brooks and Queen Latifah's duet on their cover of Melanie's "Lay Down/Candles in the Rain".

It would seem that hip-hop is doing the same thing. Lots of contemporary songs seem to have sung verses and rapped hip-hop bridges or vice versa. Linkin Park, everybody's favorite group, is a prime example.

So hip-hop is not dead. It's just being assimilated back into the big melting pot of rock and roll, the same way rockabillly, soul, folk-rock, funk, surf-rock, acid rock, heavy metal, fusion, progressive rock, disco, punk, new wave, and whatever I missed, have already been.

However, since MTV's hip-hop has become so commercial, it won't die.

I have a pet theory on the evolution of music. It begins in my heyday, the mid-80's.
There was rock (and it was good). True, most of the rockers would be mistaken for transvestites, but it still sounded good.

The marketing of the record companies really began to skyrocket as mtv began to bloom. Bands began to be created and pushed upon the American people (and the world) as though they were the next best thing to god. Case in point, Poison, (P-o-i-s-o-n), this band made little girls swoon. And little boys puke after they went and bought the album because it was pushed as greatness. Seeing the success of the p-o-i-s-o-n experiment, there came a new band, Enuff z'nuff. Anybody remember this gay-ass p-o-i-s-o-n wannabe? *GAG* (I just did a quick web search to make sure I had the correct spelling, it says something about being formed in 84, but I still say they were shaped by the record companies).

About this time, people began to wake up to the contrived nature of the industry. Grunge began to flow out of Seattle. A raw, simplified, no makeup wearing goodness. Alas, it was too late for rock. Fans poured away in their millions. Rap became transcendent.

Rap has maintained it's status for over 10 years of mass marketing. It could be said that perhaps the marketing rats figured out their mistakes from the late-80's; but eventually people will become sick of being told what is good.

It is also an example of how marketing tends towards courting women. You can dance to rap, it's hard to dance to rock (other than just random gyrations anyway.) Women like to dance. Women like rap. Men like rap so women will like them.

Of course, all this is simplified. It would take a lot of time and research to put this into a proper form. One could consider the formulaic solos and many bands besides the p-word were involved. Among countless other things.

Also, one can't forget the generation gap. It is guaranteed that all you young whipper-snappers who think you're so cool (;)) will have children who think you are the stupidest thing ever created. And by extension, your music sucks.

As I said before, what will come next is the real question.

(This is a bit off-topic, but remembering the 80's reminds me of the old days of Circus and Hit Parader. I didn't buy these magazines so much for their articles and band info, as for the kick-ass art that used to make up a large part of the rock community. Alas, it's a photographic world nowadays.)

Edit: And by the way, speaking of rock-rap. Remember Anthrax? I'm the man!!!

Edit again: Hey, Poison wasn't censored here. Is the poison ban over? Or is it just in the lower forums?

How dare people like something you do not.....damn right baffling ain't it.

Fo sho, dog.

No, hip hop is not dead; it has spurned many variants, some of which are misogynistic and violent in their message, but then hip hop is more than lyrics and the musician never had to be socially responsible. No, hip hop is very well alive and is probably the fastest gowing of all the the musical cultures. One must of course not limit their definition or understanding of hiphop to the daily tripe that is the work of a handful of producers and lyrics that are mere copies of other successful ones. This is simply popuplar music or pop. Hip hop is as much Mobb Deep, as it as Nas, blackstar, Talib, Gangstarr, 'm, pac, etc etc. Undergound hip hop of course does not necessary ensure that the craft is better...

This is rather off-topic, but i need to rant. Some of you might find this interesting.

Nirvana emerged in '92 and showed the world a grungy powerchord band. From then on, hundreds of bands have followed this pattern, mostly diluting it to nothing. For example, listen to a modern rock song like new Limp Bizkit or Korn, is it impossible to hear the music, its just drabble. There are no ups or downs in the song, its horrible. Thats not to say everyband was influenced by them. Take Oasis, they are amazing and I doubt cared much for Nirvana. It will take bands from other parts of the world to lead mainstream rock back to its proper direction, like U2 did with the Joshua Tree in '87. Bands such and the Darkness (who everyone hate just cause there not "prettied up") and Jet from Australia. A rock explosion will happen that will shrink rap.

Not so, it seems (where I live at least) that more white kids are becoming "urbanized" to try to, shall we say, "fit in" at school and so on.

@the fountainhead
Would you consider Big Tymers, Chingy, Ludacris, Raekwon to be hip-hop artists?

LMAO @ Rappaccini
Still infected by the blue jinn, eh? A-A-A-Achoo! Gosh, I hope those things aren't contagious :D

@invert_nexus
I don't think marketing is doing us any good really... they just give "us" as in the general public, what they thing we would like to hear and then by some stroke of psychology which I can't exactly put in words. As Idle Mind bluntly put it, people are "stupid", but here is the question: Should the artists give the people the "pop" version which is POPular and rakes in the dough? Or should they scrounge and give the people the old skool message?

If they choose the pop version, then people will go onto P2P and download their stuff from there. If they choose option number 2, bootlegs will fly like crazy still. I have noticed that many artists have opted to kill two birds with one stone. They start out with a hit single and a music video to get attention and then they have the rest of their tracks nitty gritty. I hate this because it's false advertising and you buy the CD just to find out the rest of the tracks suck. So usually getting the file of P2P is a lot more convenient.

The more hip hop tries to expand, the less "successful" it will be. People will try to "branch" it out the way rock did and it won't become as fun anymore, like you said, kids are going to listen to this supposedly "cool" stuff and roll their eyes but IMO, (some) music from a decade ago actually isn't that bad. And there's my little schpiel (spelling?).. :D

Sad anecdote:

I was in line at Best Buy (that's not the sad part). A black kid buying some rap CDs behind me points at my shirt and asks who's on it. It was Miles Davis.... I found that somewhat frightening.

JustaRide, who is Miles Davis? I don't think I'm familiar with that generation.

Also, I think the contrary. Rock seems to be decreasing in intrest rather than rap - Rap is exploding in popularity...

JustaRide, who is Miles Davis? I don't think I'm familiar with that generation.

Also, I think the contrary. Rock seems to be decreasing in intrest rather than rap - Rap is exploding in popularity...

OK, I'm not quite sure if that was meant seriously or not, so here are my two answers:

If you're being serious, Miles Davis is a jazz legend who helped create fusion in the mid-60s. (Bear in mind I'm not of that generation either.) If you ever get a chance check out <i>Kind of Blue</i> or <i>Bitches Brew</i>. I'm not a huge jazz fan, but those albums will make you appreciate jazz if you give them a chance.

If you were joking, ha ha. ;)

By the way, I'd have to agree with your assessment. I don't really see hip-hop on the decline (though that may depend on how one defines "hip-hop"). Traditional rock may be on the outs, but then how does one account for the popularity of a band like The White Stripes or The Strokes? They may be exceptions to the rule. I find rock seemed to be headed in a more cerebral direction at least for a while there. The semi-mainstream success of bands like Radiohead and now the Flaming Lips says to me that rock may have splintered into so many subgenres that it is now too nebulous to define.

Josh

just wondering
is eminem hip hop???

cos if he is, then hip hops doing ok

eminem is NOT hip hop.


an inane, commercial bastard.

And I meant that literally.

so what do you think hip hop is???

inane "Without contents; empty; void of sense or intelligence; purposeless; pointless; characterless; useless" (www.dictionary.com)

if he isnt intelligent, how come hes doing so well, his music has a point, just like all other music, entertainment, his music has character, even if you dont like his character, and his music is as useful as anyones

btw, we live with capitalism, EVERYONE is commercial

the masses idolize him unfortunately. hopefully you are not sucked in as well.


try nas, tribe called quest, scarface, common, atmosphere for an "intelligent" message..