West Coast Connection Forum
DUBCC - Tha Connection => West Coast Classics => Topic started by: ::Mr. Hahn:: on November 16, 2003, 03:58:08 PM
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Hey Guys...i found this interesting article on a rap news site...i dont know if you all read it...but i thought it has some interesting comments...although i am a huge fan of 50....it is right in some ways...
What do you think?
-Article taken from BlackElectorate.com
"Hip-hop is dying, and it is dying because of rap music.
Before you get that perplexed look on your face, please keep in mind that rap and Hip-hop are two different things.
Rap is a music genre that is linked to the Hip-hop culture. Rap is to Hip-hop as chapter is to book.
Hip-hop is dying, and 50 Cent is holding the murder weapon. As a rap artist, 50 Cent's success includes being ranked No. 1 on the Billboard charts for weeks and selling more than 870,000 CDs, making him the rap equivalent of Britney Spears: Not only does he not add anything positive to the music genre, but he also exploits it for his own financial gain.
50 Cent's idea of entertaining lyricism includes a song titled "Bloodhound" where he says, "I love to pump crack/ Love to stay strapped/ Love to squeeze gats but you don’t hear me, though."
What is occurring here, and in most cases in Hip-hop, is the push from big record labels who aren't concerned with the integrity of the music or message, but how many units of a violent and negative record they can sell.
Hip-hop is the graffiti, the urban vernacular, the breakdancing, the culture and way of life that rap is a prominent part of.
The thirst for money and perpetuation of violence is the reason why rap is dying, and it is killing Hip-hop in the process.
To understand how these diseases have infested the genre, you have to know how rap artists are defined. If I have to explain why Talib Kweli and Jay-Z are both commercial rappers, I am going to break my headphones.
The word "commercial" means for profit. Anyone selling his or her CD for money is a commercial artist.
Many people will argue that it is the lyrical content that separates different rappers. For instance, because Jay-Z and The Clipse rap about money, drugs and women, their music is put in a different category than Common or Mos Def, whose lyrics are about cultural awareness. What people fail to realize is that no matter what the messages, the artists make a profit. The only difference is the number of zeroes behind the dollar sign when you compare one artist to another.
Which leads me to my second point. People who take money away from the artists' record sales are stealing from the art form.
It is a sad day in Hip-hop that artists have to protect their music from "fans" stealing the songs.
According to an article displayed on Launch.com, respectable artists like Jay-Z have to cleverly maneuver their way around pirates that are trying to release his CD "The Black Album" before he does.
"That's why we're moving the release date,"Jay-Z said in the article. "There's no honor among thieves, people bootleg strictly for capital gain."
Not paying for CDs by your favorite artists is stealing, and it is another virus that is killing Hip-hop.
What did you do before Napster? Oh, I remember. You dubbed your friends’ tapes for the songs you wanted. Well, it was called piracy back then too.
Besides a couple of interviews with some rappers, I have no ties to the industry; I am disappointed in sharing music files as a fan. If these artists are good enough for you to listen to, than why not support the music they are making financially?
Don’t misconstrue what I am saying. Hip-hop is not dying because supposed rap fans keep stabbing it in the back. Many of the artists in rotation right now are not responsible for the sounds, messages and images they are inundating their audiences with.
It is bad enough that the culture is being diluted by the elements of Hip-hop being used to sell common products.
The music industry is nothing but a conglomerated machine that pushes 50 Cent onto the masses and uses the media's negative stereotype of young African-American males to further their market share in urban music.
As far as I am concerned, Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson is a worthless pawn holding the gun that is killing the integrity of rap music that others before him have struggled to earn.
There are several factors that play into the death of Hip-hop. Destructive rap music provided by "entertainers" like 50 Cent are hurting the genre from the inside, and bootleggers stealing from the artists are causing a dichotomy in the social exchange that Hip-hop offered through rap music.
Now everything is a battle to the death."
- - Rashida Restaino is a columnist for The Northern Star, where this article first appeared and can be contacted via e-mail at: rrestaino@northernstar.info
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Hip-hop is dying, and 50 Cent is holding the murder weapon.
well, I dont agree with everything he wrote in the article, but he has some good points, even though he's using & hatin on 50 cents name too much. I think he's just trying to say that 50 cent is killing hip hop. BUT i see where he's coming from, that quote basically sums it up
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Yeah, im a huge fan of 50 actually...at times he makes himself look a bit stupid....but some points are true though..because Rap is so mainstream these days...he carries with him, the image of rap.
For those, like my parents, who are illinformed about rap, they'll look at 50 and think "This is what rap is all about" and then they form a negative image.
Its a concern i think....but its inevitable...
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good article. I agree 100%.
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Too bad hip-hop blows.
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most Rappers are ignoring the other elements of hiphop way too much. it's rare rappers bring breakdancers into their shows like black eyes peas do. It's also rare for a rapper to beatbox n shit like that. thing is also that rap stands for hiphop nowadays somehow, instead for the respective element of hiphop.
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Fully agree...i'd love to see some beatboxing...when i went to the Jurassic 5 concert in Sydney, it was great to see em breakin it down, freestylin etc, like...just showed some versatility...
Great show...
Its a pity rap turning into pure bling...
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Fully agree...i'd love to see some beatboxing...when i went to the Jurassic 5 concert in Sydney, it was great to see em breakin it down, freestylin etc, like...just showed some versatility...
Great show...
Its a pity rap turning into pure bling...
Yeah J-5 is definetly the real hip-hop shit... It's a shame that they don't get more props.
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Too bad hip-hop blows.
::)
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Too bad hip-hop blows.
Hey! no biting rap/hip hop here >:(!!! >.<
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I disagree with almost everything said on the article.
First of all, that rap/hiphop difference is still an opinion, can't take that for a fact. Some people say rap is the music and hiphop the culture, but some others (like KRS-One) say it is the same damn thang. So, dont agree in the way the article talks about that.
Now, why exactly is 50 murdering hiphop? For being commercial? Later on he says that every rapper is commercial because they got their profit from the albums they sell. So, why is 50 murdering hiphop again? What should and artist do to not murder hiphop, give away their albums?
Maybe 50 is killing hiphop cause he talkin bout pumping crack and being strapped. Oh yeah, he's the only one talking bout that. Dont nobody rap about guns, drugs and women. Only 50, the others rap about the universe and how it's all connected....So, negative content is killing hiphop....but what is rap all about? Rap aint about the flowers and the bees, rap is about shit happening everyday. If niggas keep dying and struggling, rap is reflecting that. If that dickhead writing the article dont like that, he should strive to change the world and then rap music will change afterwards.
And I still dont understand how all this is killing hiphop. The writer says "Hip-hop is the graffiti, the urban vernacular, the breakdancing, the culture and way of life that rap is a prominent part of". So that means that 50 aka "the killer of hiphop" says "hey kids, stop writing on the fucking walls or I'ma break your spine", "Stop breakdancing cause that's bad fo your back"... how selling millions of rap albums can do any wrong to graffiti or breakdancing. That's just plain stupid.
And I am not a 50 fan, I dont even like him, but this article is plain stupid. It contradicts itself most of the time. I dont like the way hiphop/rap/whatever-u-wanna-call-it is nowadays, shit is fucked up. But those reasons were crap, they made no sense.
Or maybe I did not understand shit! :P
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Yeah, im a huge fan of 50 actually...at times he makes himself look a bit stupid....but some points are true though..because Rap is so mainstream these days...he carries with him, the image of rap.
For those, like my parents, who are illinformed about rap, they'll look at 50 and think "This is what rap is all about" and then they form a negative image.
Its a concern i think....but its inevitable...
Agree 100%
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I think the points the author mentioned were mostly crap! Probably the topic-title is right, because when rap dies all the other elements would be not as important as they are today, because rap is kinda like a condition for all the other elements, although it shouldn't be like that, but only because rap is popular, the other elements are still in the news.
But to say "rap will die because of the commercialism" with the same breath as "every rapper is commercial because he sells his music" is stupid as fuck, because it's normal that artists want to sell their work, it's the same with actors, etc. And not only rappers want to sell their music, every artist since the beginning of modern music does!
Another dumb point of the author is the example with 50. I think rap is characterised to be one of the only music-genres, where the artists tell about their true experiences, struggle, etc. It's a honest genre, that's what it's all about. And to critize rap-music to be too "entertaining" is also very ridiculous, because I think that's only the minority, and there's still nothing to say against that, because the most people listen to music just for entertaining. I'm sure there are more fans that listen to rap because of the lyrics then in every other music-genre.
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most Rappers are ignoring the other elements of hiphop way too much. it's rare rappers bring breakdancers into their shows like black eyes peas do. It's also rare for a rapper to beatbox n shit like that. thing is also that rap stands for hiphop nowadays somehow, instead for the respective element of hiphop.
When all these mainstream acts do include the other elements like breakdancing it's so cliche. It's a fucking joke, cats always wearing adidas tracksuits and shoes an shit.
Justin Timberlake beatboxing aswell. Thats a joke. Get Rahzel or Killa Kella to teahc him a thing or to.
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the question that comes to my mind is, where is hiphop going in the future? One thing we all seem to agree on is that we feel it isnt moving in a positive direction. With mainstream rap taking over, (mtv/realworld/survivor/justintimberlake/trl/106&park/etc.) all of the business in the game, the new people on the scene feel that this is how things are done but we hip-hop vets know that this isnt the case. Who is setting the example for the new rappers. Jay-z is on his way out immediately. Snoop, nas, dre, cube, etc. are on their way out in the near future.
Is hip-hop going to really be lead by worthless artists such as the diplomats, etc.? How many new Ras Kass's do you see jumping up in the future? None i see. Ill be bumping my 90's shit for a hot minute
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50 Cent's idea of entertaining lyricism includes a song titled "Bloodhound" where he says, "I love to pump crack/ Love to stay strapped/ Love to squeeze gats but you don’t hear me, though."
What is occurring here, and in most cases in Hip-hop, is the push from big record labels who aren't concerned with the integrity of the music or message, but how many units of a violent and negative record they can sell.
It's the N.W.A. discussion all over again.. ::)
50 Cent is the 46435th rap-artist who talks about guns and dope..
This article is gullable in all it's naiveness.
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50 Cent's idea of entertaining lyricism includes a song titled "Bloodhound" where he says, "I love to pump crack/ Love to stay strapped/ Love to squeeze gats but you don’t hear me, though."
What is occurring here, and in most cases in Hip-hop, is the push from big record labels who aren't concerned with the integrity of the music or message, but how many units of a violent and negative record they can sell.
It's the N.W.A. discussion all over again.. ::)
50 Cent is the 46435th rap-artist who talks about guns and dope..
This article is gullable in all it's naiveness.