personally...I think it is. Cuz 99%of the hiphop thats on the radio is trash. 99% of rap videos are trash. And 99% of kids that claim they're "hiphop" cant even name the 4 elements of hiphop. And there favorite rapper changes every month. Of course, whoevers' "hot" for the molment. So called rappers these days talk about nothin' else but what they got. ITS SICKNING! Its a culture created by my african american people, and now we have no clue what the hell it is, or what to do with it. My white friends know more about hiphop than they do. I can hold an enjoyable conversation with them atleast. Without talking about Ballin' or just buyin' a cadilac. I DONT CARE WHAT YOU JUST BOUGHT!! AND DONT CARE HOW MUCH YOU SPEND! I wanna know about the emcee. Not how much money your record label gives you so you can be it modern day slave. Get real. WTF is goin' on? Im only 19, but cmon' ! its ridiculous yo! Lets embrace what we made. Lets get it back to where hiphop was for everybody. White, black, latino, asian, everybody. Skateboarders, BMX'ers, Gangstas, hustlers,B-boys,B-girls,Rockers, Dj's, Graf artist and god please give it back to the emcees. Thankyou for giving us Nas, Talib Kweli,Wu-Tang and all the cats in the underground scene that live hiphop. Or else it would be extinct.

Anyway, what'da you guys think?

I like to play a drinking game. It's every time you here a sampled song. We're drunk within the hour. People can't even make new material anymore.

i hope hip-hop is dead...

Good god, great contributions, sirs. (thumbs up!)

Hip-Hop itself doesn't stand for what it once did. Like all things, it gets dragged under the (in)visible wall of corporation greed. I'm not gonna try to even say what people like now, their individual souls, I don't know them, I don't wish to know them, nor do I even know who they are. They could either like their music bland and repetitive, or they could want their music creative and actually, gasp, meaningful. I'm not the devil's advocate, people like the stuff that is now hip-hop, they like hearing about how "(they) backed dat ass up" or their Chicken Noodle soups.

Somewhere along the line, rap stopped being an expression of what one feels. Alas, the same thing happened to rock (and every genre out there.) Today, it more about beats than actual lyrical content. It's all the same.

It happens to everything.

it's stagnating
it's not about creativity anymore it's all formulatic...even the videos most of the time have booty shaking and cars. i want more in depth lyrics. things that have meaning. take me to another world with some good lyrics. when i listen to emenim or nas I can loose myself between the words. we need more rappers like them. originals

Hip-Hop has sold out, that's what's wrong. Old hip-hop was about the struggles is the street, but now's it's about 'bling' and 'booty shaking', which has totally what it wasn't supposed to be.

Personally, I don't really like it.

HipHops dead?... YAY!

YES!

When Ice Cube started doing kids movies, it died for me. Its always been a crappy genre, but Power Metal is far worse. Just listen to Dragonforce or Manowar. Then again, people with names like Lil' Jizzy and Big Poppa, who give each other MAD respect or have fierce beefs that escalate into an all out war, thats a lil silly too.

But then again, rock music's in a pretty crappy state right now too. The White Stripes, the strokes, all that emo shit, even my once beloved Red Hot Chili Peppers are made of epic failure. I think music is dead.

Except Fulk music, that genre's getting ready to explode.

Yeah, 99% of "mainstream" music has pretty much gone down the crapper. Rock, R&B, Hip Hop, whatever it is - they're all commercialized and formulaic now. It's become more about churning out new songs that are guaranteed to be popular and making money than actually taking the time to make something fresh and interesting. It's really kind of sad.

I think what hip-hop is going through right now is something faced by every genre of music that begins to gain enough popularity to be coopted by corporations. Since these corporations control most radio stations, what you're goin to hear is the most watered down representatives of that genre. How are a bunch of record label execs going to understand what it was about the original form of the genre that spoke to people? They only hear the beats, they only know what's going to sell to the uninformed.

It doesn't mean hip-hop is dead. It doesn't mean rock is dead. It just means that what you're hearing on the radio is the most formulaic bullshit record companies can record-- and it's self perpetuating, for a while, as emerging bands begin to copy what they hear on mainstream radio in order to appeal to those same record companies and get a contract. Eventually, what you get is turnover. The companies flood the market with enough of the same old crap that even the ignorant twelve year olds supporting mainstream music get fed up with it and stop buying. That's when the corporations turn back to the underground, to see what's emerging there. Rinse, repeat.

I just go further and further afield for my music. The station Kexp in Seattle is a pretty good place to turn for new music. It's hit or miss, but it's almost always something you aren't going to hear on your local stations. wber in Rochester, NY is a pretty good station, too. (They both offer free streaming radio from their websites, with real time playlists so you can catch the name of that artist you liked.)

Music is never dead. It's just somewhere changing, where you can't see it.

That's so true.
Personally though, I got tired of listening for good new stuff a long time ago. I wallow in oldies mostly. There's a lot of old 60's and 70's stuff out there that I've never heard before, real tresures just waiting to be discovered!

Ah, but I'll catch new stuff randomly... reccomendations from friends, youtube, maybe something on NPR or BBC4.

Not hiphop though, didn't that die out in the 80's? Or maybe the mid 90's? Since then it's been more hardcore commercial than any music style since... since nothing. Isn't commerciality sort of like the whole point of that style?

For rock, I do like quite a bit of the white stripes though. I don't find that emo. Emo would be Keen, Radiohead, or Coldplay.

i listen to more ambience type music nowadays i usually just stream "dub collective" or "groove salad" through winamp.

Hip hop has 'died' just as much as any other genre.
It is too commercialized though, you can thank P. Diddy for that
But I hate those dumbasses like 50 Cent who ruin the image of hip-hop.
I personally don't think hip-hop is dead. It doesn't matter what the message is behind the song, it's music, and people listen to it.

I blame MTV.

OZONE OCEAN: hiphop blew up in the 80's and the mid 90's was its second goldenage. Thats when Wu-Tang, Nas, a Tribe Called Quest and all them cats were out. Thats the era I remember. I agree with alot of u guts that said its just a cycle and it happens to all music. But now, its kinda like 'how many times can you beat me over the head?' But I feel that as long as there is people like us to actually realize whats going on, we can make it through the winter. cuz its a cooold one. And this wack ass rap is ruining everybodys music.

I read a few guy saying "YAY!" and "im glad its dead". Thats probally cuz they never got to hear what hiphop is really about. And they dont realize, they are hiphop. You think just because you dress in the tight leather jacket with the ripped out gloves and shredded pants that your not. But guess what, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious five used to dress the same way.Also especially RUN-DMC. And if you listen to their music, it sounds alot like hard rock. It is rock, if you wanna get technical. They scream while the electric guitars playing louder than anyone. Just because you might happen to be a different color, and you dont where your pants on your knees that your not a part of the hiphop community. Look at the Beastie Boys. They dressed looked and acted like punk rockers. They WERE punk Rockers. But they were juss as much punk as they were hiphop. and its not much of a difference. The sole thing that made up hiphop was rebellion. the need to be you, and be heard. And if you do that, in a sense...your hiphop.

Sounds like a good game. It would take 5 seconds flat with the right drink.

In reply to the original post:

This happened to Rock a few years ago, that's when Hip Hop took off. What we'll see in a few years time is Rock beginning to stagnate again with Hip Hop taking off again.

Music works in cycles.

Fo' Shizzle yo. No, seriously, if you talked to me a few years ago (like two), I'd be talking like these guys going yay. Now, I'm starting respect it. Not the whole deep end stuff. I'm talking about the light hearted ones. The Beastie Boys and such. Run-DMC and Aerosmith: CLASSIC. I also liked the whole Linkin Park/Nelly(? Not sure.) thing. That was cool. Kosher even.

Hip hop was my favourite music genre when I was growing up :s then somewhere along the line, it started stinking >< Sadly, now all I listen to is classical music and jazz :s Nomore mainstream music period :o lol

The 60's/70's/80's comeback isn't helping, either. Only a handful of people I know prefer hip-hop to classic rock.

Like pretencious indy shits any better. Underground hip hop is ten times as worse as the mainstream. Don't even get me started on shitty rock bands eithar. Fuck all music. I'll listen to the same crap I've always liked, Rob Zombie, older chili peppers, Rammstein, and novelty songs. You can't beat a good novelty song, look at the smash hit "I wanna fuck you."

"...and then it's time for the after party and we hang out and do lots of sexy with girls"

Scuse me for saying, but wasn't rebellion the sole thing that made up ROCK? maybe music genres built on rebellion and being outsiders are just doomed to go down once they get accepted

Entertainment in general, actually. Rememeber a few years ago when "reality" shows like "survivor" were immesly popular? The market then got saturated by them, and people got bored. So, bored, in fact, that people wanted "scripted" TV back. Thus, "Desparate Housewives" and "Lost" became popular. Reality shows neede to become "edgier" to stay afloat, and scripted TV is now "you miss one show and you'll be lost" kind of thing. Gameshows are coming back. But it's only a matter of time before people get bored again.

There was a time that synthesized music was cool and original in the 80's. Then everyone started doing it. Sampling older music was once thought of as 'unique' and 'edgy'. Now it's hack. And if I am listening to a hip hop artists that uses the phrases "wave your hands in the air like you just don't care" or "I got my mind on my money, and my money on my mind". I instantly lose respect for them.

My point is that when the people in charge see that something is popular, they will play it, clone it, and market it for all it's worth. It's always been this way.

All hip hop (and any other genre) needs is a fresh take on an old idea. There's so much that the public hasn't heard. Lots of 'radical' atrists get put on the shelves for years until the powers that be think the public is ready for it.

When did SNL stop sucking ass?

I think hip hop is more alive now than it was in the late 90's when it was at its so-called peak. MTV isn't shoving it down peoples throats as much as they are with Pop now, which means that the good hip hop is underground. Personally I feverently believe when a musical genre is at the height of it's popularity, thats when it's really "dead" because more musicians can make due with stuff of less quality. Nowadays if you want to be able to live off your hip hop you either have to have a name people recognize, like busta rhymes (who I never liked) or have to be really realy good like Plan B or J5 so you get that underground following.

Believe it or not...one of the reasons I started messing around on Myspace was all the wild uncorporatized music.

like Dr.Steel--- the Octopus Project---V.C.O.---the STAGGERS---

great stuff...and its FREE!



I could go on.

all I have to say is Death to corporate bubblegum fake K-FED bullSHITE!!1!!

...That's the only hiphop I really listen too...
Only the big hits though because that's all I ever heard on pop radio and TV back then. White lines is still a brilliant song.

Didn't RUN-DMC really start most of the commercial stuff? With Addidas and stuff... It wasn't in their songs though (that I remember), those were great! Ya I suppose you were right about the early 90's... Ice T was good back then and so were Public Enemy, etc... (didn't they all start in the late 80's though?)

Or maybe I'm confusing styles?

What went wrong with the genre is that it changed from a musical movement to a shopping list for idiots who wanted to be bankrupt in two years or less.

Hip hop didn't die, it just fell into a coma.