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Is Hip Hop On the Decline?

Nas & Jay-Z

HipHopIsDead by ONI, 6/15/07

Hip Hop is dead. Nas said it. Countless other rappers and producers have said it. 9th Wonder doesn’t listen to anything that has come out after ‘96. Neither does Ghostface. Apparently neither is the sharpest tool in the shed. So you’re telling me that hip hop died a decade ago yet you still want me to buy your shit.

My point… Hip hop is only dead if you just watch MTV and listen to the radio exclusively. The rap music business is getting bigger, meaning that there’s just that much more garbage to filter through to get to the good stuff. The top tier of hip hop that is being put out is amazing and getting better. This is true for both mainstream and underground. Do you really think Rakim could ever hold a candle to Jay-Z, past or present in terms of pure lyrical ability? Rakim would probably agree himself that Jay-Z slaughters him in that department. We’ve got Erick Sermon, KRS-one and Big Daddy Kane giving nothing but praise to both Jay-Z and Nas for being the most talented rappers. And when current rappers give praise in return to them, it’s only for being “pioneers and paving the way”. There’s a big difference between being the first and being the best just like there’s a difference between being known and being good. J-Live, one of the most obscure MCs, is concurrently one of the best lyricists of all time.

Yeah I said it. It had to be said. If you were born before 1975 and reading this, you probably just threw up in your mouth. The older generations of hip hop heads look at me and scoff, because they had the privilege of purchasing Paid in Full and blasting “The Bridge is Over” when they first came out. What they don’t understand is that there are members of the younger generation such as myself, who started buying CDs when No Way Out and Masta P were blowing up, who are not only quite knowledgeable about the history of hip hop but have done their fare share of listening as well. I’m an ‘85 baby but probably know as many words to Slick Rick’s “Mona Lisa” as the next old-skooler out there.

But this message isn’t exclusively directed towards those die hard pre-96 fans. I’m also criticizing the younger generation for the same crime, only listening to hip hop from a certain timespan. For example, when Lupe Fiasco’s Food and Liquor was being compared to Tribe Called Quest in interviews, he responded by saying something to the tune of “I don’t know much about Tribe, that’s not my era, I was raised on It Was Written and Reasonable Doubt yadayadayada.” I don’t remember exactly what he said, but it upset me that he didn’t know anything about Tribe especially when Midnight Marauders wasn’t too far before Nas and Jay-Z appeared on the scene.

So Lupe, maybe Tribe didn’t inspire you and maybe you weren’t old enough to appreciate good music when they first blew up. But it sure as hell doesn’t mean you can’t listen to them now.

Now I’m not telling you to not have a favorite era or a favorite category of hip hop. All I’m asking is that you give some of those other guys a chance. Open your mind, get your head out of the so-called golden age or wherever you’re fixed at, fast forward to present or rewind to the past, do some research, and see what’s out there. You might just like it.

I just don’t understand why are we all so caught up in the “I hate gangsta rap” this and “I hate the south” that business? Everywhere I turn, I see another stubborn so called ‘hip hopper’ who are stuck in their era, region, subgenre, borough, whatever you wanna call it, and have no intention of expanding their range of rap music. It’s understandable, but for all the wrong reasons. Here. Let me play philosopher for a second to answer my question and offer an analogy to further clarify my argument Pavlov-style…

Super Mario Brothers for NES may bring back good memories of being a kid, not having any worries, Mom’s cooking, picking your nose, etc. And then 15 years later, you try to play the Wii, an innovative, hands on video game console that compares to nothing anyone has ever seen before, and you don’t understand it. So in frustration of it being too complex to understand, you dismiss it as bad and make some outlandish statement like “Nintendo has gone downhill.” You have been classically conditioned to associate the old (Nintendo) with better times. It’s an unconscious action.

It’s all about perspective. If you view music as a science like I do, then it would be hard to argue against me. Technology is only growing. Intelligent rappers have the mindset to learn their history and then build upon it. These are the artists that I show love to.

I know hip hop past and present and notice that hip hop is getting better. If you really pay attention and weed through the bullshit, you would notice that the flows are getting better, the concepts more creative, and the rhyme schemes more complex. So next time before you go around shouting “hip hop is dead”, make sure you delete Stillmatic, Sin-A-Matic, The Documentary, Food & Liquor, and The 9th Edition, among others from your iPod favorites and see how long it takes you to re-upload them again.