Is Rap Music Dead?

[JaxxForever]

This is a survey for everyone. and I want to know your perspectives about Today's rap music.

"A recent study by the Black Youth Project showed a majority of youth think rap has too many violent images. In a poll of black Americans by The Associated Press and AOL-Black Voices last year, 50 percent of respondents said hip-hop was a negative force in American society" theledgerdotcom

Is the genre dead? dying?

 

[Pug]

A simple answer will be 'no'. Plenty of good hip-hop out there.

 

[2GooD Productions]

As a mainstream genre, yes.

But there are so many of us 30 somethings, that really still hold a flame for the oldskool hip hop and rap.
The type of hip hop that has a message of positivity is a rare thing these days, but it does still exist.

What I find positive about this survey is that now the kids are getting sick of hearing the same old bullshit all the time. Maybe the time is right for a change, and the way things go full circle, maybe its time to take it back to the Jungle Brothers.

 

[UNORTHODOX]

Yes rap is dead. Good riddance. Hip Hop on the other hand, is alive and well, bubbling up. We as a culture just need to support the good music and remove the dead skin known as rap/pop-rap

2Good: 30+ yr/o are starting to REALLY put $$ towards new music, and go to shows. That whole "Getting too old to be here" vibe is dissipating slowly but surely. Which is how it should be, music cant be sustainable if it doesnt have support from 2-3 generations(like Rock).

 

[StressWon]

"Rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live". I wish more and more that media outlets would understand this quote.

 

[ess vinyl]

hip hop and rap is not dead, music evolves. Hip hop and rap is very alive and big right now. If your talking about boom bap, then boom bap has moved underground for the most part

 

[thedreampolice]

A decade ago, Lenny Kravitz wrote "Rock and Roll is dead" And the song is about how the Rock culture has killed the art. Hip-hop is in that place. Read the lyrics here

http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric....enny-Kravitz/EBCF8DBAAB1F061A482568C80033F8D3

and change the words from Rock and Roll to hip-hop and it is hauntingly accurate.

 

[MitchHolmes]

DEF IS, even "hip hop" artists are doing dance music songs

 

[Relic]

Rap is dying, hiphop lives and is thriving round my way.

Buy underground artists, turn off the garbage.

I havent listened to mainstream radio in over a year and Im hearing the best shit ever, hell I dont even realize when cats are using a mainstream beat anymore , lol. They call it a "remix" I call it, "the way we used to HAVE to do it!"

 

[Mike Black]

Hip-hop still lives...alot of heads have just been looking in the wrong areas.

 

[Spud]

Not at all, rap and hip-hop are better than they've ever been! Look at the industry; you don't need connections to blow up anymore, it's actually possible to make it off of raw talent and good online promotion. And we have the rise in popularity of the indedependent hip-hop collective in pop culture (the protototypical example being Odd Future, but there are others).


The current phase of rap music is basically comparable to the punk phase of rock/metal music. Which, if anybody keeps up, didn't kill rock/metal but only created new ideas in the genre.

 

[UNORTHODOX]

Not at all, rap and hip-hop are better than they've ever been! Look at the industry; you don't need connections to blow up anymore, it's actually possible to make it off of raw talent and good online promotion. (..)

Define "make it", please.

 

[Relic]

Rapping as an artform is NOT dead, never will be.. It evolves... Bad strains take awhile to evolve.

 

[Spud]

Define "make it", please.

My bad, that's a vague term. Off the top of my head, I would name Wax (posted freestyles to youtube, gained internet fame and got signed to Def Jam), Jay Electronica (started out posting tracks to "obscure internet forums" with no other promotion, signed to Roc Nation), Soulja Boy, Tyler the Creator (and I guess Odd Future as a whole), and even some producers like Lorn (also obscure internet forums, eventually signed to Brainfeeder). Those guys may not be catching up to Dre or Jay-Z's level of fame/money anytime soon, but would you complain if you were in their position?

Looking at my last post, I might have come off too positive and made it sound like I think the industry is perfect the way it is now. And I didn't quite intend it that way, sorry. We still have problems. But we tend to look at 90's rap through nostalgia goggles, and forget about all the ways that things have improved since then. Sorry for the long post.

 

[UNORTHODOX]

My bad, that's a vague term. Off the top of my head, I would name Wax (posted freestyles to youtube, gained internet fame and got signed to Def Jam), Jay Electronica (started out posting tracks to "obscure internet forums" with no other promotion, signed to Roc Nation), Soulja Boy, Tyler the Creator (and I guess Odd Future as a whole), and even some producers like Lorn (also obscure internet forums, eventually signed to Brainfeeder). Those guys may not be catching up to Dre or Jay-Z's level of fame/money anytime soon, but would you complain if you were in their position?

Looking at my last post, I might have come off too positive and made it sound like I think the industry is perfect the way it is now. And I didn't quite intend it that way, sorry. We still have problems. But we tend to look at 90's rap through nostalgia goggles, and forget about all the ways that things have improved since then. Sorry for the long post.

Who's Wax?

But yea, we do nostalgiaze the past. We're familiar with those mediums/listening experience, so it takes us back. The trick is to find your groove in these times; theres higher quality mixes/recording, no "indie/unsigned stigmas", wider topic ranges etc.

Idk if I would want to be in anyone of those peoples levels of made-it-dom though, maybe Jay Electronica. We know their potential income, but they could be struggling worse than us on the low; theres a bunch of $$$ to put into the up-keep of being an artist with little and continuously diminishing returns. It could be more of a trap now since you cant un-fame yourself ya know.

 

[dacalion]

We as a culture need to hit the reset button and basically start over. Not only the music itself but everything involved with it. Content is a big issue (the whole thought process on what we rap about) , how we listen to it (how do you really enjoy music on a mp3 player?), record labels need to go back to promoting and stop controlling the content of its artist's (just be a label and stop trying to tell us what's hot). Illegal downloading needs to be controlled or regulated (just being fair to the artist and labels). Finally, we need to remember what's happening now and never come back this place, some thing's are better off when left alone.

There are a ton of other factors but we can change the content and not do anything towards improving the state of hip hop or any other genre.

 

[2GooD Productions]

I have to agree with Dac, hip hop needs a reset.

 

[God]

Hip-hop isn't dead, in fact it's probably the most dominant music in modern pop culture. Rock is actually the one faltering at the moment.

Hip-hop's main problem is a lot of it is placed over dance/techno beats, because the sample-licensing fees these days are so oppressive that nobody wants to clear a sample anymore, so everyone is crafting songs using the same soft-synth program in order to bypass sample fees and just "buy the beat."

This "killed" the original artform. Sampling was the backbone of hip-hop, so it had to evolve because of money-hungry cats who would extort producers and rappers who had a great song on an album but couldn't release it because they had to pay 70% of the royalty to the original sample-license owner.

Also, I urge cats on this forum to constantly re-define their thinking. Stop thinking that shit is "never going to be that good," -- do a thought experiment and pretend you're a young 15 year old cat listening to hip-hop. That 15-year old doesn't give a shit about Eric B. and Rakim or how great it felt when Dr. Dre dropped The Chronic when you were in high-school. Think about what that young 15 yr old kid would do, though. You would think of coming up with NEW shit. Remember the 90's, when everyone basically said "fuck the 80's."

What are you doing to bring something innovative to the genre? Have you mixed hip-hop with dubstep? How about hip-hop with Moroccan new-age death metal? (I'm joking on this last one-- but you catch my drift.)

Go take a look at the posts I wrote for this website 10 years ago, on "Crapmetal" and how investors/companies are looking for the next big thing.

Fuck the past, bring in the future -- but be cognizant of the past and learn from it. But always focus on changing the game.

Are you going to be a starving artist or a Picasso? Make something that is truly out of your comfort-zone -- that is the trailblazer.

This is a survey for everyone. and I want to know your perspectives about Today's rap music.

"A recent study by the Black Youth Project showed a majority of youth think rap has too many violent images. In a poll of black Americans by The Associated Press and AOL-Black Voices last year, 50 percent of respondents said hip-hop was a negative force in American society" theledgerdotcom

Is the genre dead? dying?

 

[dacalion]

If you like or want to be a part of something, you should know a little about it...that 15 year old should care about those that paved the road for him. I agree with "changing the game" only if the essentials are still hip hop, if they change it too much it's no longer hip hop imo...i.e. (Chris Brown via 2012 BET Awards = non hip hop). Maybe we need to seperate hip hop and RnB again!?!?!?

 

[Mike Black]

A lot of niggaz trying to take hip-hop
And make that shit R&B, rap and bullshit yaknowhatI'msayin?

-Rza