“Hip Hop is dead” this was a very bold statement that a world famous rapper from Queens by the name of Nas said when he released his 2006 album “Hip Hop Is Dead” This album Nas released on December 19th turned a lot of heads and created a huge amount of controversy. Nas Is a part of southern hip-hop, which has been blamed for the downfall of hip-hop. Yet many of the fellow southern rappers from the south have made statements that go against this album. Artists such as Ludicrous, Trick
Daddy and Big Bob from Outcast have said that hip-hop is dying but have not made such a brave comment about the hip-hop genre. Ill Wayne who is also a part of southern rap claims that hip-hop Is dying due to the laziness of the artist. I do not agree with what Nas has said. I believe that hip-hop is not at all where it used to be. It has not died; it has Just evolved into a whole new lifestyle. Yet saying that hip-hop has evolved is the wrong way to put It, because In saying It has evolved means that It would have had to change for the better.
Hip-hop has devolved is a more appropriate statement to make. Nowadays the only things that are being talked about are how much money the artists has, how many members of the opposite sex they can get or how unstoppable they are. To put the new devolution of hip-hop into a nutshell, all hip-hop Is about Is materialism. It Is said that money makes the world go around, but do we really need to be hearing everybody constantly saying you have mountains of cash rolling in by the second, and watching you throw money at the camera like it was nothing.
Violence is yet another one of the commonly noticed aspects of devolution hip-hop. There Is a deference from being firm with what you believe In and not backing down from that, but when It comes to the point where you are going to brutally murder someone to prove that, then that’s when we have a problem. Now because someone doesn’t like whom you are, or doesn’t like your music, it absolutely does not give you the right to threaten him or her with his or her lives. Gunplay seems to be the only resort to solving any problem that gangsters have.
Shootings happen everyday in areas filled with poverty, and it is all being blamed on hip-hop because of its violent content. In the film Beyond Beats and Rhymes Part 2, an interviewer went around to all the young aspiring rap artists and asked them to rap for the camera, and every single one of them said something that had to do with the use of gunplay and violence. When the interviewer asked them why they use such violent language, all of them answered with “It’s what the people want to hear, it’s what I’m going to have to spit to get to the top.
A rapper doesn’t have to always be rapping about money, cars, clothes and violence to get a record deal, but that Is what is lead to believe due to the lyrical content devolution hip-hop music. Peace, Love, unity and having fun are the four core values of hip-hop according to Africa Bumboat who is known as the Grandfather of the hip-hop culture. Unlike many artists today, he tried to rid the streets of violence, not promote It. “It was Just something we were doing for fun” DC Cool Here spoke these words. He threw parties for the inner-city teens in the area.
These parties were a way of escape from the 1 OFF Grandmaster Flash who gave these teens an outlet for their struggles, it wasn’t until groups like Public Enemy, Boogie Down Productions and N. W. A that the true life of the ghetto was announced publicly. These groups had that hint of violence, but it had a deeper meaning behind it. It told the tale of the everyday life that the people living in the ghetto had to deal with. The lyrical content was very explicit, but it had to be to be able to get all the details that they wanted to get out to describe the life they lived.