Hip Hop is dying

The future of Hip' Hop?

All eyes, for the moment at least, are on Hip’ Hop. Next week will see the release of the Third albums of arguably the genre’s two biggest stars, Kanye West’s Graduation and 50 Cent’s Curtis

Its an important date for the music industry too as this blog from a Chicago Tribune Blog points out.. http://leisureblogs.chicagotribune.com/turn_it_up/2007/09/showdown-betwee.html


Two of the biggest-selling artists of the last four years go head-to-head Tuesday in the record stores with new albums: Kanye West’s “Graduation” (Good/Roc-A-Fella) and 50 Cent’s “Curtis” (Aftermath/Interscope).
It’s a big day not just for West and 50, but for the ailing music industry. With sales down 30 percent this year, the major labels who have dominated music for the last half-century are in need of a blockbuster album (seven or eight of them, actually) as the holiday buying season looms into view. Hip-hop in particular is tanking. In the ‘90s the genre led the surge in CD sales. Now it’s in the doldrums, with only three of the top-20 best-selling titles of 2007.

Hip’ Hop may not quite be ‘dead’ as the album title of Nas’s latest effort suggests, but its definitely in decline.

Why is this the case?

Well, my generation at least and seemingly the market as a whole has been turning enmass away from Hip Hop towards the skyrocketing genre’s of rock, whether that be emo, indie or even the classic variety.

Quite a range of tastes and preferences, which mainstream Hip Hop, just doesn’t have. Its dominated still by gangster rap and chauvinistic men boasting about their strength, magnetism and how many times they’ve been shot. Its not exactly appealing to the music fan who wants a bit more substance from their music.

Cue a great exodus of teenagers, including me, who were of the age were you truly become critical of the music you listen to, rather than merely accepting it. As a result a whole generation of 14 and 15 year olds switched allegiances away from the Hip’ Hop and embraced Rock which had arguably suffered its own crisis in the late 90’s where in the temporary gulf in the absence of Britpop, it was perhaps justifiably seen as the genre for miserable Goths, if you told someone you listened to rock. Jokes about Korn and Slipknot would invariably follow.

Rock has since smashed into the mainstream and managed to diversify itself, the NME lead revolution of fresh garage rock bands such as the Strokes and The White Stripes replaced the since Dormant Blur and Oasis and Pop Punk bands such as Blink 182 and Sum 41 offered a more cheerful alternative to Korn and Slipknot, unfortunately these two strands of Rock would later create two of the most despicable social scenes ever created in history, ‘Indie’ and ‘Emo’ but that is the price you have to pay for mainstream success.

Hip Hop will need to innovate itself once again and provide, like Rock has , greater variety, more originality and greater creativity to pull itself out of its rut, mainstream hip hop is and has been for quite some time, dominated by this ultra masculine and often homophobic figures which as gun crime spirals in the UK appears less and less attractive.

Hip Hop’s great hope lies In artists like the outspoken Kanye West, the self proclaimed nerd, who is more than happy to throw in political and social commentaries into his lyrics rather than talking about shooting cops and has denounced homophobia and chauvinism in Hip Hop in the past.

Or the outstanding Outkast, Imparticular the unpredictable Andre 3000, who is more than happy like, Kanye West to borrow from other genre’s, throwing in a guitar lick here and there and lending drums that sound more like drum and bass than a traditional hip hop loop. Rock music has always been ’borrowing’ from traditionally black genre’s, Rock juggernauts Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stones have made their fame and fortune on blues rock originated from the deep south of America.

It’s time for Hip’ Hop to lend back some ideas to level the playing field and claw back some fans. Next weeks chart battle is not as simple as a fight between two stars of the genre, as Blur vs. Oasis was in the 90’s, its far more important than that. It is a battle between the new wave of Hip’ Hop and the old, the future and the past. Kanye may not win the popular vote, but it is his brand of Hip Hop that offers the genre’s greatest potential growth for the genre.

Klaxons in Mercury win shocker!!!

'Nu-Rave pioneers'

Arguably, the best album on this years Mercury music prize was never going to win. The artists in question won it last year. Having the honour of being the awards ceremony that praises itself on rewarding artistic merit over commercial success, the odds for the world touring, platinum selling Arctic Monkeys far removed from the edgy newcomers of last year, being the first act to win the award twice in a row were low.

The bookmakers odds reflected it, with relative unknown Bat for Lashes AKA Natasha Khan and the troubled Amy Winehouse leading the pack both with similarly fine albums. Surely they would take home the prestigious prize.

Of course not, ever controversial often for the sake of it, they chose the plucky, arguably less talented, outsiders as they done many times before (M people anyone?) It was the Klaxons, who had not been on anyone’s lips as a possible winner who pulled through, with their annoying brand of ’New Rave’, sorry ’Nu Rave’ (ugh) that stole the prize. Acting like drunken schoolboy tossers on stage, declaring how brilliant they were and how hard they had worked to get here, displaying the kind of shoddy mic work that has had them branded as an awful live act.

To add insult to injury the band went on to blow their trumpet perhaps a little too hard, proclaiming the win as a victory for ‘forward thinking music’ and casually dismissing Winehouse’s Back to Black as ’A retro record’ then modestly adding “We have made the most forward thinking record since I don’t know how long” More than happily adopting the underserved crown of musical innovators with little modesty. Quite a contradiction to the humility and maturity shown by last years winners the far more talented Arctic Monkeys “Someone call Richard Hawley he’s just been robbed!” Adopting an arrogance beyond their talents only made the Klaxons made themselves look even bigger wankers.

But hey, it’s the Mercury’s I’ll be sitting in my living room this time next year eagerly watching if Radiohead’s 7th LP can trump Pink Floyd’s critically acclaimed comeback album…maybe

We wouldn’t have it any other way would we? At least it wasn’t The View.