Friends, enemies, and countrymen lend me your ear…
Someone told me that commercial rap has taken over.
They said, “people don’t care about none of that real hip hop no more.”
They said, “people don’t even know what real hip hop is anymore.”
I disagreed, but I did wondered.
I hear rappers singing like R&B singers on their made-for-radio songs.
These songs are manufactured strictly for commercial sales - singing appeals to a wider audience.
I heard someone say “that’s gansta” on a song that featured Missy ‘Hee Hee Hee Hee How’ Elliot.
Is Missy a thug now?
Now, I know why she’s laughing.
Missy is hee hee hee hee how-ing, because rap music has become a joke.
Commercial rap has seemingly taken over and two choices arrive.
One, accept the status quo. After all, its just entertainment. Right?
This would include letting any song with a danceable beat produced by Timbaland or Neptunes be called Hip Hop.
And let any song with a childish hook that most likely was jacked from a nursery rhyme or an Off-Broadway Show represent the culture.
This would also include letting every clown with money enough to pay his or her way on the airwaves to claim they are the illest.
Letting commercial rap take over would also probably force hip hop, as a culture, to allow anyone with a platinum car, watch, chain, or tooth, with a side order of diamonds claim to be a MC.
Lastly, this would include abandoning the roots of Hip Hop as a culture.

Hip Hop is a culture that never was represented by blinging, Cristal, or a$$-fest videos…

It’s all love right? That’s what most rappers hold on to. Today’s childish rappers have made it impossible to be critiqued. In little kid fashion if you speak negative about a wack rapper you’re labeled a Hater. And we know haters don’t keep it real. The other choice is to keep it right and expose the wackness. Now tell me, which side are you on?

It’s a small wonder like Vicki/why I’m picky. Cause niggas suck like hickeys/and still get to slip their shit in like mickeys. I’m sick of these hater players…

Talib Kweli – Hater Player

The choice is obvious for some but confusing to others. That’s understandable. If you’re told a lie long enough, you may start believing it - regardless of how foolish it sounds. Youth is very impressionable. Little kids walk around trying to emulate DMX, Nas, and Jay-Z. Adolescence would walk around trying to be like Marilyn Manson, if that was all they were exposed to. Thankfully, someone decided Marilyn Manson wasn’t good for the children of the urban community. However, being a womanizing, drug dealer/addict, nymphomaniac Cristal fiend was deemed cool.

My niggas can’t take music. Everybody’s wack to us… so we hate music. Now we’re making hate music...Straight up degrade music...

Camron – Hate Music

So, now someone is stepping up to the forefront to bring music back to the culture and the childlike rappers and record executives have the public labeling them ‘haters.’

If you dislike lyrics that degrade women, you’re a hater. If you notice that beat sounds like all of the past seven songs by the same producer, you’re a hater. If you say so-called Urban radio stations are plaguing the black community worst than television [with exception of BET], you’re a hater. If you don’t hate are you a liker? Does anyone else realize how unintelligent this hater word is?

If you don’t like something President Bush does, are you a hater? If you speak out about the police brutality in your community, are you a hater? If you’re courageous enough to go against all odds and speak up because you’re intelligent enough to realize other people have been hoodwinked and bamboozled, are you a hater?

Like Talib Kweli said, “Reverse psychology got them scared to say when $h#t is wack. At the fear of being called a hater, imagine that?” The only true people who hate are the ones who allow the hip hop community to continue to subjugate themselves. The haters are the ones who have you scared to speak out against oppression. These people have a great love for money, but they are the ones who hate and it’s all directed towards you.

Who’s To Blame?

Don’t blame the artist because they’re just trying to make money. Don’t blame the magazines because they only print what sells. Don’t blame the radio stations, because they only play what you want to hear. Don’t blame the record companies or their executives, because they’re only trying to keep their artist from starving. Sarcastically, I can’t find a problem with anyone listed above.

If you truthfully want to blame someone, blame yourself. If you choose to selectively fight battles. Blame yourself. If you choose not to boycott artist, magazines, radio stations, and television programs that feature these artist. Blame yourself. If you choose to complain about music and then support the same artist or similar artist because you like their flow. Or because that beat is “just so tight yo!” Or because, “Jigga is just so smooth and his delivery is cool and he’s not talking about you because you’re not a ho.” Blame yourself. And if people like the beat so much, why must it be accompanied by degrading and/or cliché lyrics. Why not just dance to an instrumental? Does hip hop culture really need the nursery rhyme hooks to sing along with while your dancing? Does the hip hop culture really think they can’t have fun unless they’re screaming, “Project Chick, E.I. E.I. O, We bout that, or Shake that A$$?”

The reality is everything black isn’t positive. A message that comes out of a Black persons mouth doesn’t always represent the views of the Black community. Revolutions usually start in the mirror.

Again I ask, which side are you on?

i cant read all that...

but ill say im on the side with the underground or wherever the true lyrics are and with those who care about the hip hop culture and not about money or mainstream bs...and by mainstream i mean shit like crunk juice yeah! rappers and lil jon shit...not all of mainstream sucks

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lol that is long to read but naw its not

Yeh it is long to read, but if you care for hip hop you will take time out of your busy rv life to read it and post some decent reply's.

There's a second thread to this. I just wanna see what everyone's point a views are first.

aight i read all of it but i got a little confused...lol

but im guessing it means that we have to change shit ourselves...and change the media so its not the way you described it to be, which is what im tryin to do if i get signed thats what im doin props to talib,rakim,and others that keep it real werd

peace

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Is this site really that lazy that they cant be nothered reading?

oh well.

Da problem is dat most of da mainstream rappers only care about da money..they dont care about da state of hip hop they only care about their bank accounts..and I dont think Crunk music is ruinning hip hop..I think da artist r ruinin hip hop Mickey Mouse artist like ying yang twins, trick daddy, Lil Jon(even tho I think he is a good producer), lil flip, Chingy and evn Pitbull..

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Latin King forever Cuba forever, we run this motherfucker...

yeah its wayyy to long to read lol but i dont think Hip-Hop is doomed at all...i think its actually gettin bigger if thats wat your asking

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all i gotta say is that true hip hop is all of the above.......underground and mainstream. fuck what anyone else says..........its the truth and real hip hoppers know that. theres no muthafuckin' way that you cant say that neither side is fundamental and/or important in any way.....they are what the whole game is judged by, lol. thats like saying that without darkness, you'll know what light is. c'mon, think about it. there is a need for both for either one to survive.

s.v.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick Fletcher. I don't drive an Eclipse, they're chickmobiles.

QUESTION: Is it even possible to improve upon perfection???
ANSWER: CRHYME SINDICATE



"I remember this one time I thought I was wrong........but I was mistaken." -Unknown




R.I.P. Jonathan "ONE MAN BAND/TERUMOTO" Nigro. Goodbye brother. God bless the dead. One love.

here are some words to the wise...............hip hop is only as dead as you are, period.

hip hop is us, ALL OF US......and if we cant carry on and elevate the forementioned creative legacy then we fail. that means hip hop fails. i am hip hop........regardless of how many others are or arent. i support creative thought and expression through any means necessary, regardless if its breaking, tagging, dj-ing or rapping........its an outlet..........its my outlet.

basically speaking..........if anyone thinks that hip hop is dead...........its only because it has died in yourself/themselves. word.

do you. thats all any of us want.


s.v.

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Nick Fletcher. I don't drive an Eclipse, they're chickmobiles.

QUESTION: Is it even possible to improve upon perfection???
ANSWER: CRHYME SINDICATE



"I remember this one time I thought I was wrong........but I was mistaken." -Unknown




R.I.P. Jonathan "ONE MAN BAND/TERUMOTO" Nigro. Goodbye brother. God bless the dead. One love.

The answer is no...

It's your own decision in fact.

If you listen to underground artists, you know that hip hop isn't doomed. But we can't neglect mainstream, those artists are selling, are getting their name out there. And not all mainstream artists have wack lyrics with a good beat or such.

It's doomed if you want it to be...

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yo i read all of it.......and i have to say.....this is one of the best threads ive ever read on this site....possibly the best............next time one of my ignorant ass friends try to say that chingy, jkwon, the cash money millionaires, lil scrappy, etc. are hot and talk about how good they are......ima set em straight....and let them know how sorry they are......yes i am a hater.....i would be labeled under the hater catagory in the music industry....because in their eyes i am.......but fuck them.......real hip hop needs to come back into the industry so we dont have all these people walking around talking about the new chingy song.....or some shit like that....we need to let incompitent peeps know what hip hop is........let them know that you are a hater....

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i disargee dat hip hop is doomed da only thang is customers u buy diz lucky charm shit called music by diz artists r da 1's who r keeping artists like chingy & nelly in bizness of selling diz bullshit dat'z y commercialism rap is on da rise

yeh^^ i feel you a bit.