so is it illegal downloads killing hiphop?

[Chief]

Gangsta rap on death row as the US tunes out
By Tim Shipman in Washington, Sunday Telegraph
Last Updated: 2:00am BST 02/07/2007



To judge by their lyrics, gangsta rappers are adept at seeing off rivals with a bullet and their women with a slap.

   
Rappers Spliff Starr, Eminem, Papoose and Busta Rhymes on stage

 
But America's rappers are now trapped in a corner they don't seem able to shoot their way out of, with either weapons or words.

Confronted with haemorrhaging sales, the most assertive popular music movement since the Sex Pistols has lost its swagger and is suffering a crisis of confidence.

This year rap and hip-hop sales are down 33 per cent, double the decline of the CD album market overall, which is under pressure from music download sites such as iTunes, where fans can buy individual songs.

In 2006, rap sold 59.1 million albums, down 21 per cent from 2005. Not one rap album made the American top 10 sellers of the year - a list headed by the saccharine tunes of the soundtrack to Disney's made-for-television High School Musical. The bad boys of rap are now trailing the cowboys of country and the headbangers of heavy metal.

advertisementSince rap's apotheosis five years ago, when Eminem's album The Eminem Show topped the American charts with 7.6 million sales, no rapper has come close to emulating his success.

Rap has been deserted by many white fans and middle-class blacks, apparently tiring of the "gangsta" attitude to women, racism, violence and bling - the gold rings and medallions that have made hip-hop a byword for -vulgarity.

"The public has made a choice. They're saying, 'We do not want the nonsense that we see and hear on radio, and we are not putting our money there'," said KRS-One, a rap legend from the Bronx. "Rap music is being boycotted by the American public because of the images that we are putting forward."

Tom Vickers, a former talent spotter for Capitol/Mercury records said: "Rap has gradually degenerated from an art form into a ring tone. That's why we're seeing this backlash. There's only so much bling the public can take."

The early pioneers of rap are also seen to have sold out. Snoop Dogg, once famed for his ghetto lyrics, is now helping to advertise Pony trainers while 50 Cent is pushing grape-flavoured vitamin water, a far cry from the kind of hard liquor usually associated with the hip-hopsters.

Kevin Powell, a historian of the genre, said: "Hip-hop culture has been assassinated by the hip-hop industry's desire to make money by any means necessary."

The rap artist Nas bemoans the decline on his new album Hip Hop Is Dead, complaining that everyone sounds the same and that they have forgotten their roots.

No one embodies the decline of rap like Marion "Suge" Knight, the man who created Death Row Records and became known as the John Gotti of hip-hop. When Knight, reputedly a member of the LA gang the Bloods, helped mastermind the careers of Dr Dre, Snoop Dogg and Tupac Shakur, his company boasted annual sales of $200 million (£100 million) and the monicker "Motown of the Nineties".

Now he is an ex-convict, a bankrupt who is $137 million in debt and facing a civil trial in which the family of murdered rap star the Notorious B.I.G. claim that he was gunned down in 1997 by hitmen hired by Death Row as part of an East Coast-West Coast rap feud. Now the bad boy of rap is planning to withdraw the entire Death Row back catalogue and bleep out each and every instance of the word "nigger" in its songs. "To me, it's never too late to change," he told The Washington Post last week.

Earlier this year, the radio "shock jock" Don Imus sparked a media storm by referring to black members of the Rutgers ladies basketball team as "nappy headed hos", a derogatory term for unkempt prostitutes. The fury that ensued cost Imus his job but immediately prompted claims that an ageing white man is judged by different standards from the "gangsta" rappers who use such terms with abandon.

The Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama joined the conservative Fox News channel in calling for a crackdown on rap lyrics.

Hip-hop mogul Russell -Simmons, who made millions co-founding and then selling the Def Jam label, called a meeting of music industry executives shortly afterwards and called for the words "nigger", "bitch" and "ho" to be bleeped out of radio -versions of songs.

The New York civil rights leader, the Rev Al Sharpton, protested outside the offices of leading record labels and met executives from Universal, Warner and Sony Music, who control 90 per cent of the rap market between them. He declared: "We plan to continue to march until those three words are gone."

In the rush to condemn, the leading black magazine Ebony removed the rapper Ludacris from its cover. Verizon records then dropped Senegalese-American hip-hop star Akon after video footage surfaced of him simulating sex with an underage fan on stage.

For many, though, this capitulation to mainstream taste is another sign that rap is dying. An unrepentant 50 Cent said he had no intention of cleaning up his lyrics.

"Music is a mirror," he said, "and hip-hop is a reflection of the environment we grew up in. If I ask you to paint a picture of the American flag and not use the colour red, you're going to have a difficult time."

But others see in this reappraisal a renewal of the genre. Michael Dyson, professor of African-American and Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania said: "The most powerful sign that hip-hop culture is alive is the withering critique from within about the industry. Horrible hip-hop must die so that regal hip-hop can live. Hip-hop is dead. Long live hip-hop."
 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/01/wrap101.xml

[No Compute]

Hip-Hop's time being the highest selling genre or the most popular genre with the mainstream music fans has come and gone. There's no way it can be avoided it happens to everything which is popular, taste changes with time.

[Styles1]

the are right about the art form to ringtone part....

[Chief]

Hip-Hop's time being the highest selling genre or the most popular genre with the mainstream music fans has come and gone. There's no way it can be avoided it happens to everything which is popular, taste changes with time.

it has never been the most popular genre. Rock has always taken that, hip hop never really surpassed rock in sales.

[ToOoOoN!!!]

the are right about the art form to ringtone part....

[StevenQBosell]

Tom Vickers, a former talent spotter for Capitol/Mercury records said: "Rap has gradually degenerated from an art form into a ring tone. That's why we're seeing this backlash. There's only so much bling the public can take."

Kevin Powell, a historian of the genre, said: "Hip-hop culture has been assassinated by the hip-hop industry's desire to make money by any means necessary."

Horrible hip-hop must die so that regal hip-hop can live.

Awesome article.

Now the bad boy of rap is planning to withdraw the entire Death Row back catalogue and bleep out each and every instance of the word "nigger" in its songs. "To me, it's never too late to change," he told The Washington Post last week.

LOL Are you kidding me Suge??

[R-Tistic]

To me...this article is only hitting part of the issue.

The main issue is that rap has become so damn monotonous and bland that many people don't feel like it's worth buying. Along with that...rap has been hit hardest by bootlegs because their fans tend to be the "cheapest" since they can get it for free. Kids music will always sell because the parents will buy it, and because the kids aren't old enough to download and bootleg it. Older artists will always sell because most adults are at least partially against "illegal music" and many of them aren't up on the technology. Most rap fans are 14-30, and they grew up at the height of illegal and easy downloads, so they tend to bootleg this music the most. When you look at those who may be part of the lower class, they definitely aren't going to spend money on albums, especially because all of the mom and pop stores sell CDs for 17 dollars, and the dude in front of the gas station sells them for $3 and $5. Besides, most of them could care less about albums, when they can buy a mixtape that has every major hit on the radio on one CD.

Also, it is obvious that the writer is not familiar with the different styles of rap. True "gangsta rap" died in the 90s, and it's morphed into many different things. Crunk music created many hits, but only a few artists had lasting power....and the truth is, the south may get 70-80% of the radio play, but I would be surprised if they even get 50% of the sales, because most of the artists who make major singles and club hits will have a very average album in which the single is the only good song on there, and people will just download the ringtone versus buying the CD. Outside of the main artists, Lil Wayne, T.I., Outkast, and a few others who ALWAYS push major units, most of them aren't going to sell as much as the radio play would lead you to believe.

Please believe the use of "nigger" "bitch" and gun and drug references have nothing at all to do with the decline of sales. When you look at the music that sold in the 90s, it wasn't always violent...but the violent music that sold had something else to it that made people buy it, which was the overall vibe of the music and the culture that surrounded it. I do agree that rap has turned into a ring tone art...along with the fact that making songs with a dance to it don't make people buy albums...they just like doing the dance. However, most  younger rap fans aren't really sitting there thinking about things in such a rational matter...they just don't buy it, plain and simple.

[Styles1]

the decline of the music store also plays a factor....

I had lunch one day with a former A & R at a Major label and he gave me the story about the labels buying in to special groups that got their music in to the Best Buys & Wal Marts all over the Country.... but those stores ended up pricing out all of the Sam Goody's and Tower Records stores.... which took them out of the malls and other easy access spots.

Now you have to hunt down an F.Y.E. or the nearest Target, Best Buy or Wal Mart... 

[BritneySpears]

I haven't read the article yet, but what I do know is that artists make more money with performances than with record sales.

[Oklin]

Hip-Hop's time being the highest selling genre or the most popular genre with the mainstream music fans has come and gone. There's no way it can be avoided it happens to everything which is popular, taste changes with time.

it has never been the most popular genre. Rock has always taken that, hip hop never really surpassed rock in sales.

I remember I once read that hiphop had become bigger than rock.. And I think it was in sales...

[Jip]

i stopped reading at "No one embodies the decline of rap like Marion "Suge" Knight, the man who created Death Row Records and became known as the John Gotti of hip-hop. When Knight, reputedly a member of the LA gang the Bloods, helped mastermind the careers of Dr Dre"

[T-Dogg]

That bit about Suge and what he's gonna do about the DR catalogue was stupid, but otherwise I'm on the same lines as the article.

Hip-Hop became too commercial. There's too much of it and it's everywhere. The public gets tired of it and finds the next thing, that's just the way it goes.

What's wrong with Hip-Hop now is that it got stuck in that commercialism, in the "money by any means" -mode. But - and I know you've noticed this too - both the fans of Hip-Hop and the artists have noticed what's wrong, or have started to notice at least. There's still a lot of trash out there (I won't mention any artists 'cause I know some peeps would start bitching), but little by little artists are "doing their own thing" again and pushing the envelope.

Maybe Hip-Hop artists will sell more records again, maybe not, I just want the music to get better. There's a lot of good music out there, you just gotta look for it more. Perhaps the biggest obstacle is breaking new acts onto the stage, 'cause it's a big financial risk these days.

But we'll get there. The industry will change, the budgets will decrease and the artists will ultimately have just that one weapon they started with to use to sell records - the quality of their music.

[AboveTheLaw]

The Recording industry is dead, hip hop or otherwise. People will still buy CDs but that medium is pretty much obsolete from a profit stand point. The Major Labels & Distributors should have embraced online music a long time ago, although not to say that this "illegal downloading" wouldn't have come up at some time or another. If people can get something for free, whether legal or not, I would doubt anybody would actually shell out money for it, especially this narcissistic MTV generation who thinks they're entitled to everything.

I had a Radio Exec tell me that he hopes Hip Hop & BET both die a commercial death, at least for a bit, so that it's bland and repetitive portrayal will stop overshadowing what Hip Hop is about primarily: The Lifestyle. You can capitalize the music and clothes all you want, sadly to do the same with knowledge isn't easy, otherwise the label heads wouldn't mind a bit of variety in the music scene as far as the mainstream goes.

Although the Music Industry as a whole is still okay. As was mentioned above, when it comes to live concerts and sold out arenas, many artists and their labels can make huge profits. It is important that they get paid and compensated, especially the artists who are actually talented beyond 1 or 2 Singles, unlike that talentless motherfuck called Yung Joc. (Sorry I really don't like that artist  )

As for the ring tone thing, well I don't what to say. Here's a very general time line of how music has been distributed through the last two centuries or so:

- Transcription Sheets for Piano and other instruments
- Microphone Technology
- Radio
- Wax Cylinder Recordings
- Phonograph (Shellac & Vinyl) Recordings
- Wire Recordings
- Tape Recordings
- Reel Tape
- 8 Track
- Cassette Tape
- CD
- MP3
- SACD
- Audio DVD

Wonder what the next brain dead cash cow will be for the music industry once Hip Hop goes...

[Narrator]

it has never been the most popular genre. Rock has always taken that, hip hop never really surpassed rock in sales.

In the fiscal year for '98, it was reported that hip-hop outsold rock by about 10 million albums.  I don't think the gap was ever that big after that, but it pretty much remained in existence for many years after.

[The King]

Downloading isn't killing hip-hop. The simple fact is, mainstream Rap/Hip-Hop is not interesting anymore. The rappers themselves are BORING people. Lil Wayne, TI, Luda, 50 Cent, The Game. Their all boring people with boring stories.

15 years ago, we had NWA, Quik, Dre, Snoop, Cube, Easy-E, and all the east rappers. All with interesting stories, how they grew up, how they made it in the business, who they are as people.

What interesting about growing up middle class, getting a record deal through an Exec, and releasing music you probably didn't write or produce.

Rappers these days are BORING. Uninteresting people playing uninteresting characters, releasing cookie cutter ghost written albums, with mediocre production.

Theirs no artistic talent in rap anymore. Like the old Quik, writing, producing and pretty much doing every step of the music process himself. Now, most rappers get mailed beats, get told what to rap about, and have the record execs putting the album together.

Rap music sales are down because rap music quality is down. The artists with REAL talent like Crooked I, WC, etc can't even get on a major label because their not marketable. The only quality music being released is released by independent labels. Fuck 50, Kanye, TI, Lil Wayne, Jay-Z, the Game. They all suck. They all can't rap, they are all products of the industry. Fake people, with fake stories, with fake lives, releasing mediocre music.