(Un)Hip-Hop

If you look at any prominent industry in popular culture today you can see the affect the pursuit of money has had on the quality of that industry's product. Sports has been affected as athletes jump from team to team chasing the biggest contracts, diminishing fans' loyalties and ultimately the general publics' interest in that sport. The film industry has been affected as production companies trade quality for quantity as they pump out film after film, relying on star-power and special effects rather than exceptional screen writing, acting or directing. And the Hip-Hop music industry has certainly been affected as the artists and the producers of these artists have sold out (a common term in the music industry) to the insatiable appetite for money that they so frequently rap about.

Without alluding to too much statistical data, I was reading an article a few days ago in USA Today that listed some changing trends in the music industry. Rap sales are down 33% from 2006, twice the decline for the industry overall. Five years ago rap ruled the musical roost. Eminem's album The Eminem Show was the runaway best-selling album that year with 7.6 million copies. Since then, no rap album has sold well.

In 2003, 50 Cent ruled the charts. Three years later? High School Musical. In the past year, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg,, Diddy and NaS have released albums, but only those by Jay-Z and Ludacris have even sold 1 million copies.

So why the massive drop in public interest and sales? Industry analysts suggest a range of factors including marketing strategies that have de-emphasized album sales in favor of selling less-lucrative single songs and short versions of those singles as ringtones.

I'm inclined to think it might be something else. I actually believe that today's savvy listeners are tiring of rappers emphasis on the 'gangsta' lifestyle/attitudes, and violent tales of street life and rampant, conspicuous consumption of 'the chronic.' Who really cares anymore? In the early 90s Gangsta Rap was music's radical newcomer reflecting the truth about life in the 'hood, especially from the perspective of poor and marginalized urban youths. Now it's a multi-billion dollar product.

It's rap's very success... it's transition from the Bronx block parties where it originated, to its Top 40 chart domination... that presents its biggest challenge. How do they stay authentically rooted in the environment they grew up in, while driving a Bentley with diamond-encrusted knobs and Louis Vuitton custom leather seats? And if they do discard the ghetto lifestyle of their past for triumphant stories of their successful transcendence, how long will listeners really care about their bling, their chronic, or their dubs?

The simple fact is this: you just can't be a commercial gangsta. Snoop Dogg endorses Pony sneakers; 50 Cent peddles grape flavored vitamin water. Fifteen years ago thugs were shooting kids to steal their sneakers. Now those same thugs have massive contracts to sell those sneakers... all legal and $#!+. And who in the hell is 50 Cent selling vitamin water too? Who drinks vitamin water??? Perhaps I've been out of the States for too long, but have 40oz bottles of malt liquor been replaced by 1 liter bottles of fruit flavored vitamin water? The mainstream business approach that's been taken by people who made a career out of bucking the system has drained creativity and credibility from an industry genre that desperately needs both.

Part of hip-hop's attraction has been the assumed authenticity of its lyrics and artists, but now many of today's listeners believe that so much of what's out there is orchestrated, fabricated and pre-packaged. Like many other industries, hip-hop has established a formula for success and now artists are simply trying to duplicate what's already proven successful.

Rap pioneer, KRS-One, bluntly explains, "The music is garbage. What has happened over the past few years is that we've traded art for money, simple and plain, and the public's not stupid."

Hip-hop artist, NaS, decried rap's lack of originality on his album Hip Hop Is Dead:

"Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game / Reminiscin' when it wasn't all business / They forgot where it started / So we all gather here for the dearly departed."

Hip-Hop used to be music with a message. Public Enemy's Chuck D described it as "the CNN of black culture," encompassing everything from parties to politics. Now hip-hop is a multi-billion dollar part of mainstream culture, influencing fashion, lifestyles and language, selling everything from SUVs to personal computers. One could argue that these artists (misogynists glorifying racism and violence) are simply making good on their own success, but the problem is they're still selling 'ghetto' while appearing on MTV's Cribs.

It all boils down to authenticity. Rappers are still trying to capitalize on the street cred they may have legitimately earned in years past, but it's hard to captivate an audience when you're a multi-millionaire sporting a diamond covered handgun pendant spitting lyrics about life in the 'hood.

Rap may not be dead, but it's significantly weakened, in part by its own doing. The strategy of pushing singles to sell albums has backfired in the digital age. Why spend $19.99 on a mediocre complete album when you can download the album's two good songs for 99-cents each? Rap's early pioneers like Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy and LL Cool J touched on humor, politics, ghetto life and the realities of their surroundings. Today rap has degenerated from an art form into a ringtone. And that's where the backlash is coming from.

Hip-hop must reinvent itself if it's going to survive. It needs to start addressing the current issues society is facing. There's only so much bling, hos and chronic the public can take.

And a word to the industry (from an unqualified rep): reinventing itself does not mean diluting the product by jumping on whatever Top 40 genre is hot right now. Hip-hop is hip-hop. Jumping on the Gwen Stefani train is not reinventing yourself. It's self-preservation; it's trying to stay afloat.