Time Magazine: Rap is Dying

[AtmaWeapon]

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653639,00.html

The article is large, but here are some highlights:
Today that same market is telling rappers to please shut up. While music-industry sales have plummeted, no genre has fallen harder than rap. According to the music trade publication Billboard, rap sales have dropped 44% since 2000 and declined from 13% of all music sales to 10%. Artists who were once the tent poles at rap labels are posting disappointing numbers. Jay-Z's return album, Kingdom Come, for instance, sold a gaudy 680,000 units in its first week, according to Billboard. But by the second week, its sales had declined some 80%. This year rap sales are down 33% so far.

[...]

Gangsta rappers reveled in their outlaw mystique, crafting ultra-violent tales of drive-bys and stick-ups designed to shock and enthrall their primary audience--white suburban teenagers. "Hip-hop seemed dangerous; it seemed angry," says Richard Nickels, who manages the hip-hop band the Roots. "Kurt Cobain killed himself, and rock seemed weak. But then you had these black guys who came out and had guns. It was exciting to white kids."

Hip-hop now faces a generation that takes gangsta rap as just another mundane marker in the cultural scenery. "It's collapsing because they can no longer fool the white kids," says Nickels. "There's only so much redundancy anyone can take."

Artists who never jumped on the gangsta bandwagon point the finger at the boardroom. They accuse major labels of strip-mining the music, playing up its sensationalist aspects for easy sales. "In rock you have metal, alternative, emo, soft rock, pop-rock, you have all these different strains," says Q-Tip, front man for the defunct A Tribe Called Quest. "And there are different strains of hip-hop, but record companies aren't set up to sell these different strains. They aren't set up to do anything more of a mature sort of hip-hop."

[...]

Chris Lighty, CEO of Violator Entertainment, whose clients include 50 Cent and Busta Rhymes, is looking at ways that record companies can work with artists in one area where rappers have been innovative: endorsement and branding. Whether it's 50 Cent owning a stake in Vitamin Water or Jay-Z doing a commercial for HP, most of these deals have been brokered by the artists' own camp. But Lighty sees in hip-hop a chance for record labels to generate more sponsorship and endorsements. "Record companies are going to have to make even better records and participate in brand extension. It's the only way they can survive," says Lighty. "We need to change the format, and this is the only way. 50 Cent is a brand. Jay-Z is a brand."I have always really hated gangsta rap and it's refreshing to see that perhaps the consumer is getting tired of hearing the same beat that has had maybe one or two notes rearranged in Fruity Loops laid down to lyrics inspired by 10 minutes of listening to a police scanner.

I question whether gangsta rap's target audience was white suburban teenagers on the grounds that I'm pretty certain singing songs about violence towards black people at white people has been on the "do not do" list for quite some time. Certainly many suburban white teenagers have embraced this music but I'm curious if this is a side effect or intentional.

My favorite part, and the biggest confirmation that rap is dead, comes at the end, when a label executive points out that the reason the records aren't selling is Jay-Z and 50-cent aren't doing enough Mountain Dew commercials. Everyone knows that if you are hardcore enough to do a video for the Ford Freestar then you'll be swimming in platinum records like Scrooge McDuck with more girls in the coop than the Colonel has chickens.

Maybe R&B/Hip-Hop will make a comeback and we'll have some actual music again.

[AlexMax]

Color me unsurprised. If you listen to the Top 40, it sounds like they've been making the same damn rap and R&B song since, well, forever, it all pretty much sounds the same to me. But true hip hop will never die, and if you look beyond what they show on MTV, you'll find an undergound scene that is stronger than it ever was, just look at how well Definitive Jux and Stones Throw is doing. The industry is flavor of the month, and the crap the industry has been putting out is clearly on its way out, but true hip hop will never die. I can't remember who said it, but one underground MC said it best when he said "Put that rap shit second, and hip hop first."

Beat Basement (http://www.beatbasement.com): An underground hip hop internet radio station. Low bitrate, but awesome tunes.
Stones Throw (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stones_Throw_Records) (Home to Madlib and his various collaberations) and Definitive Jux (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Definitive_Jux) (Home to El-P, Aesop Rock, Mr. Lif, Cage, and more) on wikipedia.


http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1653639,00.html

The article is large, but here are some highlights:I have always really hated gangsta rap and it's refreshing to see that perhaps the consumer is getting tired of hearing the same beat that has had maybe one or two notes rearranged in Fruity Loops laid down to lyrics inspired by 10 minutes of listening to a police scanner.

That's not even gangsta rap. Rappers today are more like wannabe gangstas who usually live a really clean life and pretend that they're hard. And the problem is that even if a good rapper comes out with one sucessful album, they'll either follow up with something like their first album, sell modestly, and get ignored by the industry, or they'll create something marketable and keep raking in the dough.


Maybe R&B/Hip-Hop will make a comeback and we'll have some actual music again.

Hip Hop will never make a "comeback" because it never really had a chance to shine in the first place, the industry did what it does best, takes a genre and homoginizes it. You'll hear something good on the radio once in a while, but I guarentee you that if you hear the guys next album in heavy circulation, it's going to be garbage.

Also, I hope R&B dies along with the industry. What a worthless genre.

[Beldaran]

Music sucks so bad right now it's embarrassing to be a musician. I frankly hope all these huge record companies go completely out of business as punishment for marketing such horrible crap for so long.

[The_Amaster]

Yeah, I've gotten sick of the Rap era. Gangsta rap is just really offensive to me. Hopefully we'll get back music that has what I look for in a song, i.e good music.

[mrz84]

Yay! My least favorite music genre of all time is getting a swift kick to the nuts! Gangsta rap can go the way of the dinosaur for all I care. :kitty:

[AlexMax]

EDIT: woops

[phattonez]

You have to remember that gangsta rap is not the only kind of rap. Seek and you shall find, there is good rap out there.

[Masamune]

Can't forget MF Doom (Madvillain) either. ;p God damn, I love MF Doom.

[Prrkitty]

I can't stand Rap (Paul calls it crap). Ultimately music comes in all shapes, sizes and sounds. People don't have to like it all... just depends on the person.

[erm2003]

I'm not really big on rap either, but a few of my friends are. I think there are some good artists out there who do more than just this style who are an exception, but for many I don't feel like I can call them as talented as other musicians out there.

[Gleeok]

Rood ridens. I though all music sales have been diminishing since 2000, not just (k)rap.

[phattonez]

I'm sure that they all have been diminishing, but rap is taking a big hit. I say this couldn't have come soon enough. I hate the radio so much, except for those few good ones. Everything else is just the same rap over and over.

[AtmaWeapon]

See I don't agree with your R&B sentiment AlexMax because when I was looking for some Run DMC one time I kept finding them filed under R&B so I assumed it was tied somewhat to hip-hop. It could be that the stores I shop in are just stupid and I got the wrong impression.

I really do like that old school stuff though some of the rhymes are just so awesome. I guess you are right about it not really coming back though; it was always one of those scenes where selling out invalidated your music I guess.

[Lilith]

gangsta can be pretty great, sorry. and people are still probably going to rap (it's fun!) just probably about different things.

[phattonez]

When has gangsta rap been sweet? I can't think of a single song.

[Lilith]

natural born killahz.

edit: gin and juice

[Gerudo]

this is all in good fun on my behalf, so don't get your panties all in a bunch plz

man all i see is a bunch of white kids,
goin on and on about how the black lives,
you bitches aint got shit on us, you dont know the life,
we'll keep rappin just like i fucked your wife,

<insert humorous reply here>

[AlexMax]

When has gangsta rap been sweet? I can't think of a single song.

The Chrnoic, Straight Outta Compton, Criminal Minded? Granted, those albums are more than a decade old (Criminal Minded is two decades), but they're still great albums.

[DarkDragoonX]

The declining popularity of the rap genre makes me feel all happy and tingly inside.

[AlexMax]

Oh yeah, I'll Sleep When You're Dead came out this year, and it blew my fucking mind, one of the best hip hop albums I've heard in a very long time.

http://xs118.xs.to/xs118/07343/El-P-IllSleepWhenYoureDeadFrontCove.jpg.xs.jpg
clicky (http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=18341496)

The Overly Dramatic Truth and Smithereens are the two standouts of the freebies avalible.

[gamer07]

Yeah but bone thugs _n_harmony is still gonna go platnuim like always plus there the best rappers alive sence tupac,biggie smalls,and eazy_e died and there cd e-1999 went platnuim over 7 times and is rated 1 of the BEST rap cd's of all time and the song tha cross road won a gramme they are the best left!!!!!

[AlexMax]

Yeah but bone thugs _n_harmony is still gonna go platnuim like always plus there the best rappers alive sence tupac,biggie smalls,and eazy_e died and there cd e-1999 went platnuim over 7 times and is rated 1 of the BEST rap cd's of all time and the song tha cross road won a gramme they are the best left!!!!!

Measuring an album by how much it sold isn't a very good metric. MC Hammer's Please Hammer Don't Hurt Em' went 10x platinum and was pretty much garbage.

And I've listened to some Bone Thugs. Their beats are maybe marginally better than the normal, two-note synth and drum machine poppy shit you hear on the radio all the time, and lyrically they're sappy as hell and sound more like R&B than hip hop.

They might be easy to listen to for some people, but so was A Tribe Called Quest and Gang Starr, and both of them were much more talanted.

Point of comparison:

Bong Thugs - I Tried (http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=2336894838730148136)
Gang Starr - Moment of Truth (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lH3hrtp1T84)
A Tribe Called Quest - Jazz (We've got) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhWyGrSV82M)

Bone Thugs are not the best emcee's alive, not by a long shot. You just haven't been looking hard enough.

[AlexMax]

THERE OLD CD'S ALEX MAX YOU DIDNOT LISTEN the new cd don't have busy bone on it (so it's not as good)plus I ment from the time the realest rappers were alive and bone thugs is/were friends and raped with the best/hardest rappers of all time I no i've been listen to bone thugs before this sight and purezc was made sooo.....I no what i'm talking about!!!!!!

Fair enough. See if you can dig up an older track of theirs on google video or youtube and I'll give it a listen.

[biggiy05]

Congrats you just got an infraction.

Learn some grammar and stop double posting.

[AtmaWeapon]

I heard some A Tribe Called Quest on MY XM RADIO the other day and they were pretty :cool: I'll have to give them a listen if I can ever find that The Sword CD I want.

[Lilith]

thanks for tunes alex-chan :)

[Masamune]

Yeah, good call on the El-P album. I completely forgot to get it. <3

[phattonez]

I heard some A Tribe Called Quest on MY XM RADIO the other day and they were pretty :cool: I'll have to give them a listen if I can ever find that The Sword CD I want.

All of their music is pretty easy to get, and I recommend all of it. Their music is the way that hip-hop should have gone.

[AlexMax]

All of their music is pretty easy to get, and I recommend all of it. Their music is the way that hip-hop should have gone.

It's still going that way, you're just not going to hear it on the radio, because it requires people with talant, and those people are the exact same people studios can't jerk around, since they are good enough to stand on their own.

The record companies needs mediocre talant that's unlistenable and unmarketable without their input, that way if they ever go "FUCK THE RECORD INDUSTRY" they can't make it on their own merits.

But in spite of what the trends in the music industry are, underground will never die. There will always be emcees, producers and DJ's who fly under the radar and will always release consistantly great albums. You just have to look for them.

[Sute]

I never was fond of rap.
Apparently, I qualify to be a BAD DUDE, 'cuz I lived in a crappy childhood place, but I am so incredibly white :D
My sister listens to that stuff, it's annoying when she's around. I only listen to the radio when someone nearby has it on, otherwise I don't even remember their channels or anything.
It's just most excellent that people are finally getting tired of that stuff. Most rap is horrible, but some can be good, absolutely anything out there can be good. It's just most of it is so monotonous with sex-drugs-guns.

[copsgotguns]

have you guys heard the song "a bay bay"?
jeez has rap really been reduced to mindless jibberish about
females, money, and cars?

the only shining beacon of hope for contemporary rap music is Common.

[Breaker]

Blackalicious. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackalicious) Kthxbye.

[AlexMax]

Blackalicious. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackalicious) Kthxbye.

Blackalicious - Make You Feel That Way (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2bqTc88ns)

and to raise the ante on positive lyrics:

De La Soul - Stakes is High (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PF2C051CuBY)

now let's take a look at MF Doom, this guy has collaberated with damn near everyone:

http://xs218.xs.to/xs218/07340/1416151.jpg

De La Soul & MF Doom - Rock Co Kane Flow (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dn5riAE98w4)

Madlib & MF Doom (Madvillian) - Rhinestone Cowboy (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjQuVbH4010)

DJ Dangermouse & MF Doom (Dangerdoom) - The Mask (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UQakz9-kvfI)

Gorillaz & MF Doom - November has Come (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-g4COJVAnLI)

and of course has done some solo shit as well

MF Doom - Beef Rap (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qa200dvsTGE)

[War Lord]

You've all hit the head fine.
Commercial rap is dying horribly. The past few years have been horrible, regardless of the couple that weren't garbage.

Rock has been downward as well, to me at least. I can't get into much of the new rock.

It's all across the board, not just rap, regardless of how one sided you want it to be. When burners and burnable media became cheap and easily obtainable, music sales have continued to decline. It's a shame too, because without sales, these guys won't be sticking around.