Hip Hop Cancer Symptoms

[TATEguru v.2K9]

Here is a good article from USAtoday highlighting the major symptoms killing hip hop:

http://www.usatoday.com/life/music/news/20...p-decline_N.htm

Can rap regain its crown?

By Steve Jones, USA TODAY

Not long ago, rap dominated album sales charts. Now, the music that has been a driving creative and commercial force in American culture is struggling to get its swagger back.

The music industry is suffering across-the-board drops in CD sales, but rap is in a steeper slide: This year, rap sales are down 33% from 2006, twice the decline for the industry overall, according to Nielsen SoundScan. Five years ago, Eminem's album The Eminem Show was atop the Billboard chart, on its way to becoming the runaway best-selling album that year, with 7.6 million copies. Since then, no rap album has sold as well.

Established rap stars no longer are sure things in sales. During the past nine months, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Diddy and Nas released albums, but only those by Jay-Z and Ludacris have sold at least 1 million copies in the USA, and only Diddy is still on the charts.

Rap's decline can be traced to 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 ring tones for cellphones. But more important to the industry, there are signs that many music-buying Americans — particularly the young, largely white audience that can make a difference between modest and blockbuster sales — are tiring of rappers' emphasis on "gangsta" attitudes, explicit lyrics and tales of street life and conspicuous consumption.

Within the rap industry, there's a growing debate about whether years of rampant commercialism — Snoop Dogg now endorses Pony sneakers; 50 Cent peddles grape-flavored vitamin water — have drained credibility and creativity out of a once-vibrant genre of music. And there's concern that rap, also known as hip-hop, has reached an evolutionary plateau: After more than a quarter-century on the charts, it's no longer the radical newcomer.

Rap pioneer KRS-One, who just released Hip Hop Lives with fellow legend Marley Marl, offers a blunt explanation.

"The music is garbage," he says. "What has happened over the past few years is that we have traded art for money, simple and plain, and the public is not stupid."

Chuck Creekmur, co-founder of hip-hop news website Allhiphop.com, says rap once was known for creative storytelling and clever rhymes, but now is being undermined by a lack of both.

"A lot of these albums now are looking to duplicate the success" of whatever is hot at the moment, he says. "There is a lack of variety."

An industry force no more

Whatever's causing consumers to tune out, it's clear that rap no longer dominates the music industry. In 2006, rap sold 59.1 million albums, down 21% from 2005 and 27% from 2004. Sales are trailing those for country albums (75 million) and heavy metal (61.6 million) — genres that rap formerly overshadowed.

In 2006, for the first time in five years, no rap albums were among the year's 10 biggest sellers, a list led by the soundtrack to Disney's High School Musical, which sold 3.7 million copies. Compare that with 2003, when 50 Cent's Get Rich or Die Tryin' ranked No. 1 with 6.5 million copies.

This year's top-selling albums thus far are by American Idol rocker Chris Daughtry's band and jazz chanteuse Norah Jones.

The rap industry is pinning hopes on 50 Cent's Curtis, due Sept. 4, and Kanye West's Graduation Day, expected in late August, as well as releases by Eminem and Dr. Dre that could arrive before the end of the year.

But those albums may not be enough to salvage the sales numbers for this year, and it's unclear whether 50 Cent or Eminem can match their past sales.

A genre is born

Hip-hop was born out of DJ-hosted block parties in the Bronx, N.Y., in the early 1970s and evolved with emcees "rapping" over the beats the DJs played.

The genre hit the Top 40 with the Sugar Hill Gang's Rapper's Delight in 1979.

Rap soon became, as Public Enemy's Chuck D described it, "the CNN of black culture," encompa**ing everything from party tales to political commentaries, especially from the view of poor and disaffected urban youths.

Rap found an audience not only in cities but in mostly white suburbs, as well.

By the 1990s, a harder-edged version of rap that glorified gang life began to dominate music and influence youth culture. Its songs and videos typically depict violence and drug dealers awash in diamonds and platinum jewelry, champagne and scantily clad women.

Rap became a multibillion-dollar-a-year global industry, influencing fashion, lifestyles and language while selling everything from SUVs to personal computers.

Rap's declining sales haven't escaped the attention of its kingpins. Declaring that hip-hop needed saving, Jay-Z ended a three-year retirement in November with his CD Kingdom Come, in which he essentially cast himself as Superman trying to save hip-hop.

A month later, Nas decried rap's lack of originality on his disc Hip HopIs 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."

Rap may not be dead, but it's significantly weakened, in part by its own doing, music analysts say.

The industry's longtime strategy of pushing singles to sell albums has backfired in the digital age, says Felicia Palmer, president of 4Control Media and founder of the hip-hop news website SOHH.com.

Digital sales have outstripped CD sales, but not yet to a degree that compensates for the price difference between a 99-cent download and a $19.99 CD.

A just-released survey by the website found 82% of nearly 700 respondents are purchasing fewer albums than in previous years, and 67% acknowledge that they have illicitly downloaded albums rather than pay for them. One reason: 69% say they're "not inspired by many albums."

"People have gotten smart and know that (record companies) usually put out the two best singles, and the rest of the album is usually garbage," Palmer says.

Labels need to do more to help artists build their fan bases with promotional tours, which help consumers buy into the performer and not just a song, says Michael "Blue" Williams, who manages Outkast and other urban acts.

"People like hot music, but we are still not making artists who matter across the board," Williams says. "So while the labels are screaming that the sky is falling, they are trapped in their own vicious cycle of having to chase each single."

Promoting singles means getting favorable airplay, and that's more difficult now that hip-hop isn't the "only contemporary music that matters," as it was just a few years ago, says Sean Ross of Edison Media Research.

"Three years ago, you wouldn't have wanted to be a Top 40 station playing Bright Lights by (pop/rockers) Matchbox Twenty while your competitor was playing Get Low by (rapper) Lil Jon," Ross says.

"Now, Top 40 has Daughtry and Gwen Stefani, as well as a lot of quasi hip-hop from artists like Fergie and the Pussycat Dolls that, for some listeners, fill the same need as the real thing."

The real thing may no longer be real enough.

Glenn Peoples, founder and editor of music industry blog Coolfer.com, says: "A lot of people who used to listen to rap are now listening to rock. Rock is really strong right now."

'The public has made a choice'

Part of hip-hop's attraction has been the a**umed authenticity of its lyrics and artists, but now, many younger listeners "believe that so much of what the mainstream (rap) industry does is orchestrated," says Bakari Kitwana, author of the books The Hip Hop Generation and Why White Kids Love Hip Hop. "I don't think they have a lot of confidence in the music the industry is producing."

For years, increasing sales of rap albums effectively muted protests about some songs' promotion of misogyny, racism and violence. Now, dwindling receipts and fading interest in rap have provided what some in the industry see as an opportunity to rethink content.

"The public has made a choice," KRS-One says. "They're saying, 'We do not want the nonsense that we see and hear on radio, and we are not putting our money there.' Rap music is being boycotted by the American public because of the images that we are putting forward."

The rising angst about rap lyrics was spotlighted this spring during the fallout over radio talk-show host Don Imus' smearing of the Rutgers University women's basketball team. Imus called team members "hos," then later noted in his defense that the word is commonly used in rap songs to describe women.

Soon after, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons called a meeting of music industry executives. His Hip-Hop Summit Action Network later recommended that the rap industry voluntarily delete or bleep out offensive terms for broadcast.

Such efforts have drawn mixed reactions from rappers.

Master P, who built his multimillion-dollar No Limit Records empire on gangsta rap in the '90s, announced plans to start a new label, Take A Stand Records, with his son Romeo. He says he has been part of the problem and now wants to be part of the solution with clean, positive music.

That idea was derided by 50 Cent, who said he has no intention of cleaning up his lyrics.

"Music is a mirror, and hip-hop is a reflection of the environment we grew up in," he said at a news conference.

"If I ask you to paint a picture of the American flag and not use the color red, you're going to have a difficult time."

A new business model

Content questions aside, rap faces the same challenge that has alarmed much of the music industry: how to adapt to the digital revolution.

"What we have to do is figure out what the new music business is," says Kevin Liles, executive vice president of Warner Music Group, home to artists such as DJ Quik, Lil Scrappy and E-40.

"There was a time when an artist like a Jay-Z or DMX or 50 Cent would sell 4 million or 5 million CDs. But there's a new climate. Artists like Young Jeezy might sell 2 million albums, but 6 million ring tones."

Recent sales by rap star Mims reflect the problems facing the industry. His single This Is Why I'm Hot has done well this year, selling 634,000 downloads and 1.9 million ring tones, the 2007 leader in ring tones so far. But the album that contains This Is Why I'm Hot hasn't been so hot, selling only 231,000 copies. Music Is My Savior is No. 100 on Billboard's albums chart 11 weeks after its release.

Rap's early stars, from Grandmaster Flash to Public Enemy and LL Cool J, "touched on humor, politics, ghetto life and realities they faced," says music consultant Tom Vickers. "Rap has gradually degenerated from an art form into a ring tone. It's a hip catchphrase or a musical riff with a short shelf life. It has a novelty element that captures the listener's imagination, but it's not a song. It won't build a career. That's why we're seeing this backlash."

To rebound, he says, "rap has to look at the bigger issues confronting society. There's only so much bling the public can take."

The upside for rap, Kitwana says, is that so much of it "remains off the mainstream radar. You never know when hip-hop is going to reinvent itself, or when something operating out on the fringe is going to emerge and become the next new thing."

Contributing: Edna Gundersen

What I am reading from this article is this in summary:

Minimalist Ringtone/ Single-driven artists are killing hip hop. In their quest to make the next big ringtone they dumbed down their music.

The consumer feels there is no longer any authenticity.

As a result quasi-hip hop acts like Fergie can be a close enough proxy to quench the mainstream "hip hop" thurst. Hey if anyone can make tin-can ringtone rap right?
So hip hop has been simplified to the point where any sub-urban dancing 16yr old white girl with the right marketing push can claim it...

[The Angry Hand of God]

too much to read for now, but it looks interesting.

[Nar8iv]

There was a period in South African history shortly after Mandela became president that there was suddenly a surge of musical creativity - especially visible on SABC1 - everyboy and their auntie started a kwaito group.Likewise with kwaito music videos boasting the vast vocabularies only 3 year olds could be blessed with.

The age of one line repeated over several bars , with only the chorus allowing for a brief breath of originality to accidentaly creep in.

I've noticed the same trend in Crunk music & HipHop -there are Yung-what the ..." springing up like swazi plants.all somehow bereft of any ability to pen anything different from the previous cattle in the same genre.

Hopefully we will see a winnowing of the chaff from the wheat.Maybe Nas was right (please dont start a thread now).But from the ash of a barren , fire charred landscape new seedlings will rise.

[Papa ThReAdS]

@ Tate: With all due respect, your constant whining on AG has become somewhat unbearable and is starting to put focus on you in a negative light. Look, at first i was thinking in a way very similar to yours. But you need to understand that things change...That is the only thing in this world that is constant! A lot of us heads are living in an era that is loooong over. We need to man up and move on. Hip hop in the golden Era was beautiful for a lot of us...Just like the cla**ic music style of the 70's, but we all know that its not coming back, all we can do is move on. That is exactly what is happening in AG. They days when knowledgable people used to post positive informative threads, and used to spark up interesting and brain racking discussions is over. We sometimes forget that AG is a public board, and everybody that logs in has an opinion, however useless as it may be. Just brush em off or move on... thats all i can say.

[rob_one]

Well, whatever Threadstalker says, that's a carbon copy of many articles I've read in the past few months.

I preferred the one from Hip-Hop Connection that actually provided some creative solutions to the problem - the exact nature of which escape me, but the argument ran along the lines of it making sense for rappers right now to be on indie labels. I'll see if I can dig it up.

My own argument goes something like this:
- Hip-hop music is suffering due to a lot of garbage being produced.
- That said, there is little doubt in my mind that artists will ever completely stop making relevant, banging music.
- I intend to keep buying albums and making what I think is pretty banging music myself. That way, I can play a tiny part in keeping hip-hop alive.

[Dpleezy]

interesting read.

i don't see anything negative in tate posting this. hip hop as an artform has evolved over time and gone in many directions, some of which are interesting, some of which are banal.

it is easy to argue that a lot of hip hop has lost it's heart by moving away from lyricism and meaningful content towards a fantasy world of imagined criminal activity and cash chasing.

i guess this is inevitable when music becomes mainstream. pop culture doesn't want provocative messages, or for people to think too deeply about their situation - it's not good for advertisers.

living in SA it's easy to forget that there's a whole vibrant world of innovative music out there, and the possibility to earn a living making it. i discover amazing new music all the time that is never going to get played on MTV or Channel O. it takes some effort, but thanks to the internet it has got a lot easier. in this respect telkom are holding SA back in the dark ages with their insane prices.

there was a fantastic mainstream radio DJ in the UK called john peel (RIP) who championed unknown and obscure music. he proved that there is a ma**ive audience for alternative music when presented with wit and pa**ion. through his 'the peel sessions' he was responsible for unearthing amazing talent that would have otherwise reamained underground...

"The Peel Sessions are the stuff of legend. They broke all the rules and engaged the listener with rough and ready mixes of some of the world's most weird, wonderful and wired bands."

we have no such outlet in SA, which is why artists like KONFAB and Ben Sharpa can't even get a track on radio where they come from, but are invited overseas to perform at some of the most prestigious events in world music.

the depressing circular logic we have in SA is that we must make music like the stuff we hear on the radio if we want any chance of having a career. the exact opposite is true - you need to innovate and be original.

Much hip hop (and other mainstream music) has forgotten this to it's detriment.

[Blac Satyr]

Yea tate that's 2 looooon'... Got any mp3 or somethin' @least?

"People have gotten smart and know that (record companies) usually put out the two best singles, and the rest of the album is usually garbage," Palmer says.

& I was readin' Black thought's interview "Dangerous Thoughts" he's workin' on, his Solo album with Danger Mouse
on: http://www.thaformula.com/black_thought_of_the_roots_perception_thaformula_music.html

this is what he said:

thaFormula.com - Do you ever think that maybe Hip-Hop hasn't changed as much as we think it has, but that maybe as we have gotten older we have just had a hard time accepting any change in Hip-Hop as we know it?

Black Thought - I mean whether you have a hard time accepting it or not, you can't deny the fact that the shit has changed. It's unexplainable how much Hip-Hop and not even just Hip-Hop, how much the world has changed. No, it's not in your head, it's not your imagination. Every f***ing thing is changing everyday B.

thaFormula.com - Sales wise were you satisfied with how "Game Theory" ended up doing for you guys?

Black Thought - You have to be. Like you have to accept that and shit. Happy or not happy, what the f*** does that matter? Like the record came out, it was lauded the way it was lauded and all you can do is keep it moving. I never made a cent from record sales ever. In all of my career since 1987 to 2007, my shit has never been about making a quarter from selling a record because I haven't. I have never made a record sale royalty ever. Never, ever, ever! So that's how much of a f*** I give about royalties. I don't give a f***. I don't make albums to sell records. I make albums so I can continue doing shows and getting work and doing what I do to make money. I need to sell a f***ing billion records to make a dollar.

thaFormula.com - You never made a dollar off of one record?

Black Thought - Not 50 cents. I never made 20 cents off record sales. I make money from my records being played. I make money from royalties and shit, I make money from publishing and writing my songs, but mechanical record sales royalties, nah that's a f***ing fantasy. Yeah that's how the industry is.

thaFormula.com - So to close it out, how is everything going with the new Roots record?

Black Thought - Oh it's 80 percent finished. That shits coming out probably in November or December. Everybody's record is coming out this summer so we're trying to let everybody come out first.

[Bondizzo]

this is exactly what I was saying in another thread but the headz didn't listen. I think a proper gospel hip hop artist/group can sell tremendously well in south africa, but gospel and hip hop is quite contradictory

[Bobby Banks]

but gospel and hip hop is quite contradictory

Really? How so??

[Bondizzo]

but gospel and hip hop is quite contradictory

Really? How so??

its like negative + positive, has anyone ever heard of a gospel hip hop artist ?

[cash]

real talk!
hiphop is changing so rapidly it even sccares me.....the future!
but the bottom line is " GET YO SHIT RIGHT!"
do what u gotta do and hustle till u get to where u wana be! f*** the odds!
whats the point of bitching bout it! get ya hands dirty and keep it movin!

when all hope is gone and u given up on hiphop.....u know where to find me!
I"LL BE IN THE STREETS PUSHIN THAT CRACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
HOLLER!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lord Deacon Of Frost]

where's collin powell when you need him  :lol:  :lol:  :lol:

[TATEguru v.2K9]

Thanks D. I apologize if I appear to be whining a lot recently but I guess you could say I am concerned about the art I embra**ed so  pa**ionately.
There ARE still many people that post positive stuf on AG threadstalker (whether you are one of them or not).

There are lots of Gospel Hip Hop acts:
http://christianmusic.about.com/od/specialcharts/tp/top10rapalbums.htm
none that I have heard of in SA. Rush & Bux probably know more than I do.
We had Hardcore (Zubz was part of it) in Zim.
Nothing oxymoronic about that.

I don't think SA-gospel Hip Hop would sell as well as it looks on paper.
The People who buy gospel are a different demographic to the hip hop audience.

[RapScalLyon]

"I make albums so I can continue doing shows and getting work and doing what I do to make money"

Honestly cats, Black Thought has this shit well summed up. You can make a living out of music (even hip hop), but this superstar, sell a million records shit is a ludicrous approach.Nice if it happens to you i suppose.

If you see rap music as an art form, then the above article is a load of irrelevant crap.Who cares if the halcyon days for records sales are over.That's a mainstream media tactic to undermine the true underlying value of the hip hop music art form.And to get us as exponents and proponents of hip hop doubting ourselves and the sustainability of our treasured music.There was hip hop before niccas went platinum and there will be hip hop thereafter. The Roots are not going to be out of a job all of a sudden.What about El-P ? Does he now stop being Definitive coz records sell less.did that ever matter in his music and company?Will he liquidate? NoT!! have u seen footage of DefJux shows..........damn!Love him or hate him KRS-One has music career too and it's not going to stop happening because of this "phenom" in rap sales.
There's a mind-fcuk going on or has been going on regarding music as a career and it's quite important to self-define what it is you're trying to do or achieve.
You can live an interesting and varied life unrelated to hip hop culture, one day find you're quite good at writing rhymes and decide hey, maybe i can make lots money making hit rap songs.This is perfectly fine and normal and has of course been done many times, much to the chagrin of "heads".BUT, it's also something that may prove to be unfruitful NOW that record sales are are down.
On the other hand, you may find a compelling and unseverable connection to hip hop as a culture or music and be one of many who spends their days debating and defining the so-called "essence" and decide that this the thing you want to bring out with your music.historically, and especially in the preceding era, this will get you lots of kudos at cyphers ("yo,did he just go 80 bars with Gini Grindith and Fungus the Mutated Lung), but fcukall mentions in mainstream pop media.This is also quite an acceptable way to go about your life and if you find and way to continue doing this (call Pioneer Unit now) as a job, you have absolutely nothing to fear when the ADD world of pop music has had it's fill of rap.
Let's remove the notion the rappers are extraordinary beings destined to laud over the common earth because of what they do and instead RECOGNISE that it in fact the ART of rap music and the unifying power of hip hop as a culture and lifestyle that are truly extraordinary.


FREE ART

[cash]

THE MONOPOLY MIXTAPE - 100 copies sold bitches!

thats about 90 more than battlekat gave away for free in the past two/three weeks of release!!!! :lol:

its that CRACK!!!!!!!!!!
we on the streets all day niggas!now distributing in the EC!!!!
holler at ya boy!

Yo RapScalyon, thanks for the support n for doublin up!!!!
its that cccccRACK!!!!!!!!!!!!