WWW ruined hip-hop?

[Sucio]

It seems to me with the increased amount of illegal downloading of music, the quality of mainstream hip-hop tracks have gone down proportionately..

Labels, in my opinion (i don't know much about the industry), seem to be more quick now to make the fast buck rather than keep an artist around for more than one album.

So these catchy songs are getting the air play, but the remainder of the album is trash...There seem to be more fly-by-nights in the game these days than 10-15 years ago.

Nas rarely had a catchy tune on his albums...(although that track with Ginuwine tried to be one..but failed miserably). but his albums sold records......I can almost guarantee Nas' new album won't go platinum, even though it's going to be a good album. But an album like Lil Wayne's (which sucks btw, imo) would go platinum in just over a week because he has a bunch of catchy songs.....

Then you have producers like Nitty frowning down on sampling producers..saying they don't have talent.....meanwhile his beats consist of simple beats and one finger on a motif. Little does he know that hip-hop started by looping breaks.....I'm sure we all know this already...so I'll move on...

People are losing respect for the essence and gaining more respect for the money and personal accolades.....

 

[woohff]

So what you plan to do about it?

This is just pointless whining as usual. Don't listen to mainstream if u don't like it.
There's plenty of good underground hiphop and they not starving tho they don't make that
mainstream money. And if they are... well their music ain't that good then or they doing something wrong with non-musical stuff.
People tend to recognize good music.

 

[skidflow]

I Feel You...but Wack Cats Run The Planet Right Now....and They're Determined To Get There Shine.

 

[mono]

It seems to me with the increased amount of illegal downloading of music, the quality of mainstream hip-hop tracks have gone down proportionately..

thats just a temporal correlation, downloading did not CAUSE quality to drop.
contrary, i know far more skilled artists and fantastic albums ever since napster and audiogalaxy.

but theres a point with labels not supporting arts but rather working for a quick buck.
they have to, due to this fucked up shareholder value system the music industry is trapped in.

stop meditating, go make a high quality hiphop album to delight us with


p.s.:id love to see an advanced taxing system, which pays artists based on actual plays, via lastfm f.e.
we have to bring those majors down, cut out the middle man!! viva la digital revolucion!

 

[manguino]

To address the whole internet thing, there's a lot more rap now than at any previous point; technology has made recording and distributing it that much more easy and there are a lot more people interested in doing so. So there's that much more crap.

But if you can't find current rap recordings that make you feel like it remains a vital form, then you're just lazy. If you're dependant on Clear Channel and Viacom for your exposure to new rap, that's your problem. Or maybe you're too old for it--but again, that's your problem, not rap's problem.

If anyone wants to offer a nuanced argument for why contemporary rap no longer speaks to them, I'll respect it, although I'll still probably come back to the idea that the disconnect is in the fact that while rap remains youth music, the person doing the griping is approaching middle age.

 

[mono]

I'll still probably come back to the idea that the disconnect is in the fact that while rap remains youth music, the person doing the griping is approaching middle age.

nice! listening to myself i realise 2 that i start sounding like my parents did just a few years ago. "thats not music, we had music, things were better back than...blah bla blah". so we're not judging things by what they are, but by what they mean to us it seems.

@manguino: you cannot deny that mainstream has become more and more of a fastfood culture. we grew up when this process had allready started. looking back i feel like the frequency of artisticaly mature musicians in the mainstream culture has decreased.
and im feeling my parents point to some extend now. they had soulmusic, great rock music (not talking about jazz, as this always was some sort of an underground avantgarde scene) present in the mainstream. love, pain, authentic feelings. but today? "my milkshake looks better than yours..."?? lol come on!...as this is an example of the better ones...

def not saying theres no good music left, but the gap between teenagers mainstream and serious music has widened

 

[slik da relic]

i'd have no problem with "rap" if "the young rappers" rapped about things other than chiks, guns, money and the new dance... lets face it, its easier to write a song on these subjects, than it is to write a song called "sly fox" (Nas new song n vid) and really put some creativity in ur lines... and u wonder why kids are not as smart in "skool".

KRS was right... they DO sit at home with a pen and a pad goin, dad, fad, glad, sad... it IS sad.

da relic

 

[Svenghali]

So what you plan to do about it?

This is just pointless whining as usual. Don't listen to mainstream if u don't like it.
There's plenty of good underground hiphop and they not starving tho they don't make that
mainstream money. And if they are... well their music ain't that good then or they doing something wrong with non-musical stuff.
People tend to recognize good music.

My dude. That's what I be yellin'. Well said. Nuff said.

 

[Da IllFellaz]

damn.....

 

[Sucio]

Just stating what I'm looking at in terms of the game.

Yes, I've come to grips that I've turned into my parents. That's ok, I can deal with that. But the mainstream music has become the exploitation of ignorance. I don't listen to it voluntarily, but it does bother me that people look @ the hip-hop culture as ignorant people w/money, while there's artists out there who are very knowledgable people but will never get the exposure and credit they deserve (run-on sentence).

What do I plan on doing about it? Put out a good album that will never get put on the radio... Will that change things? Probably not...

My ultimate goal is to get my artist put on...I can care less if I do. I'm comfortable where I sit right now.

The amount of Nas albums selling shows me there are still a lot of people out there who appreciate hip-hop.

 

[slik da relic]

Just stating what I'm looking at in terms of the game.

I've come to grips that I've turned into my parents. That's ok, I can deal with that. But the mainstream music has become the exploitation of ignorance.

u have a more legitimate issue with rap music than they did in my opinion... ur parents, im sure come from the age when an artist "sang" on records, and didnt "talk" in rhythm... they didnt hear the [emcee's] lyrics, they were listening for a beautiful voice behind maybe a brass orchestra, a wailin guitar or funky drummer...they didnt get it.... we on the other hand had listened to the lyrics, and that helped us learn when we werent in skool, and taught us things skool did not... it kept us aware to whats goin on in the streets bcuz we didnt read the newspaper, and it still made us dance... ive learned a few things from listenin to rappers in the 80s and early 90s... i havent learned shit since, except how to "hokey pokey".

da relic