State of Hip Hop Address

Welcome to the first in a monthly series on the state of Hip-Hop. Nas decided to make a point to the world that hip hop was dead, which sent shockwaves through the new generation of rappers. Now I don't believe that hip hop is dead. I believe that its alive and well, locked away in a basement with the label of unmarketable. Hip hop is alive in the main players such as Nas, Jadakiss, Fabolous,Common, Lil Wayne, Lupe Fiasco,Ludacris, T.I. and yes Kanye West. After that there are many of them in limbo between real music and commercial garbage. Those like Juelz Santana, who have incredible potential , but is trapped in the side show of Dip Set.
In the bowels of mainstream hip hop, gems like Little Brother, Mos Def, The Roots, and Talib Kweli reside generally unknown to most new followers of hip hop. Gone are the rhymes about what really took place in your life, or the good times with friends. Metaphorical dreams and works of art painted with beats and breaks are truly things of the past that are relagated to the "Throwback at Noon." Now the majority of what we have are gimmicks. If you have heard the travesty that is Ron Brownz and his slaughtering of the synthetic voice sound that is T-Pain and the backbone of Kanye's new album then you know what I mean.
When a person's fav rapper is Soulja Boy, we are in trouble. When someone says that the success of rappers now has nothing to do with the ones that came before them, we are lost. When one says there didn't need to be a Jay-Z before to be a Lil Wayne now, we have a problem.
Secondly, we are not all drug dealers nor are we "thugs" We all don't own guns. We don't live in movies where are entire day seems to take place in the strip club or a porno. Our self-worth is not determined by how much clothing we have with names that we aren't educated well enough to correctly pronounce. Yet this is now the visible essence of Hip Hop. It's a sad day indeed in the world of Hip Hop... I offer a short comparison of Hip Hop and its captors...

TG

Lil Brother Feat. Lil Wayne -Breaking My Heart





The Cypha



Ron Brownz :(