The Time Mag Hip-Hop Piece

when you consider your art as nothing more then a source of income..... the art does die.

when you consider your art as nothing more then a source of income..... the art does die.

this glam-HIPHOP shit has gotta stop. u cannot tell anyone that these studded out, shorty let me buy u a drink glam rappers are creating art. Hip-Hop is ART. the Dance is ART the MUSIC is ART.

the creation of new genre's is Hip-Hop.

Hip-Hop is the Catalyst.

Im in a band called Future. many people will argue that what we do is not hip-hop. many people will say that what we do is the raw-real hip-hop.

im taking a chance everyday with my lyrical content. which usually has to do with spritual growth and awarness. and social and political issues that are very close to me being that i live in the suburbs of babylon.

help us change the face of hip-hop.

Future is Now.

myspace.com/mindseyemusik

The Future is now? People are biting Lloyd Bentsen campaign buttons. Truly, The face of hip hop is chagrin.

Nevermind all that.. ask those same execs and critics to name the last 5 albums that they PURCHASED in a retail store. Then you do the same.

If you do that exercise and can name more 2 hiphop albums that are not considered mainstream AND no more than 1 album that isn't hip-hop/rap in entirety then kudos to you. Otherwise you Sir or You Madam are a part of the problem.. Work on that.

that joint made me want to start blogging again. Almost.

Somehow, all the falsehoods got pulled out for this one. White kids, commercialism, greedy record labels, and the current popular rappers are all blamed for the perceived slip of hip-hop. As if all of those elements just appeared 3 years ago!

A quote and my comments in parentheses:

"That result is a stale product (by whose standards?), defined by cable channels like BET, now owned by Viacom (Viacom has no creative input at BET. Why play this card?), which seems to consist primarily of gun worship (rap is gun shy compared to the early 90's, IMHO) and underdressed women. (what's wrong with sexy women?)"

More...

"Established stars Dr. Dre and Eminem brought 50 Cent to Interscope. Jay-Z founded his own label, cut a distribution deal and began developing his own roster. But most established artists do little development."

Dre didn't develop 50 Cent and The Game? Jay-Z didn't develop and stick with Beanie Sigel and Memphis Bleek? I wholeheartedly disagree.

co signing Hashim. The person that wrote that aritcle for Time, isn't he a part of the Hip Hop intellegenstia movement? He seem pretty pessimistic about this whole thing.

Anyway, like Jsmooth said, this type of article and argument been around forever this just the same ol same ol. the record businees probably is about to die though, the way this music is marketed etc and conglomerates losing money on these labels, but the music itself nah its always gonna be evolving if some people dont want to move with the times then they can write a few more hip hop is dead articles. but any day now as soon as someone find the new DNA for maeketing this shit whether is ringtones or whatever that end up substituting album formats, this business might take off again.

Time Magazien is on some bullshit.

ps, where does hip hop rank interms of ts longetivity. seems like this hip hop thing still front and center after how many decades. a lot of those older deified artforms seem to have fell off pretty soon after all the dickriding. like jazz etc, there is still a niche market and all but apart from ur daddy who is buying that mess?

its all subjective. Hip Hop has always had its wak elements (however you define wak). these days the volume is so much greater. for me, it just seems like the examples which are currently moving big units is embarrassingly simple and/or predictable, as well as being especially wak.

funny thing is, those cats who used to make big money from it and are no longer, seem to be sookin the most about the current state of the game.

best thing that could happen to Hip Hop is for it to lose popularity. but it won't. you (and me) will just have to keep searching an ever increasing in size haystack to find that good ish.

Listen...
It was just recently posted by several major news papers right on the front cover. Sales of Rap and Hip Hop music is down across the globe. In fact it has dropped by almost 30%. Meanwhile television shows like "CSI" and "MISSING" and big box theater movies like "SAW" and "300" have grown tremendously in popularity over the last two years. Billions of dollars of revenue is generated from the sales of Blood and Gore. Racism and Crime. Guns, Drugs, and Masogany. Now let me ask you do you really think that is the reason... I don't... Its gotta be the fact that rap and hip hop ain't about the music no more. We have found a way to take art and turn it into "Bling Bling" Everybody talks about the fast car they don't really have or how they be pimpin it to the top. I don't think people can relate to a world that makes up only 5% of our population. The Upper Class. Music that people love is music that hits home. Music that people can understand and relate to. Music to help us vent and relax. Not music that makes us feel belittled by an imaginary stigma no one truly understands. We're tired of the 'icy image'. People want music to be the way it was. Heres a prime example. Click over to this website and take a quick listen to this artist and a few others and let them know what you think by rating them. These are real artist that are unsigned and have no support because they don't have deep pockets to pay the radio stations to play their music on a repetitive loop for three months. This stuff is real folks. Just take a look... http://i.am/thedoc

If your sick of this garbage I have the prescription you've been looking for.

Sure people are still buying it, but people are still buying bread and yogurt even though now they have high fructose corn syrup, fucking whole grain bread has high fructose corn syrup. The thing to do is wait one generation, the generation that knows better complains and writes articles about yogurt being dead, but by the next generation, they still buying the brand name and don't know it was ever any different.
But, fuck Time, what they miss the old days? I missed those Time articles about the Jungle Brothers and the importance of sampling.
Maybe rap just isn't that important anymore, maybe better off trying to listen to some instruments some abstraction, because kids out there are holding the wheel too tight, and formulaic 3:32 songs about I,me, my with chorus ain't taking the steam out.

Jazz records started selling in 1913, dickriding began soon after, leading to a fall off sometime around 1977. Romper Room kids that can't listen to music without some guy talking all the time, you're excused, go sit at the kiddie table.

Amen, Divisive. Especially your point on rap evolving into something that isn't important anymore. How many more percentage points does rap sales have to fall before people realize that the content in today's c(rap) is, at best, shaky?

I bet most of you cry babies are old. old people stay hating on these young kids making that paper. If hip hop was what you want it to be, it would be like neo-soul, these soul singers trying to recapture an era long gone. i know u dont want people rapping like its the 80's or early 90's. let these young kids do they thing and feed their family. that not to say i love everything out and despise anything retro, i still wonder wtf happened to dead prez. i wasnt really following their movement when they first hit the hipster consciousness as i hate hipsters and prety much everyone, but i saw Dave Chappelles block party and they stole the show for me with their performances and i went and purchased their stuff.

Petty bourgeois wanna be's love to talk about getting paid. Always talking about this guy's getting paid, It sounds real grown up and like they're inside the Industry. But really they just don't have anything to say. Without an artistic frame of reference, they don't do grafitii or break dance or anything else that isn't buying. They don't talk about anything besides the straight story, who's hot gettin' money being famous because they're unequipped. They feel like if they support people getting paid, somehow, through osmosis, they'll get paid too. Sort of like wearing a yellow ribbon. But, the rest of us are gonna call bullshit when we see it, and love shit because it kicks out the jams. Eat mine.

the victimizing and plagiarizing of black music by white america doesnt mean a genre is dead. it happens all the time in music. rock went/has been going through the same transitions too.

And look at rock now...I mean...uh