Quote:
Originally Posted by Little32
I think that there is culpability on both sides. Of course, industry is primarily concerned with what will sell; it will appeal to the lowest common denominator. On the other hand, there have to be artists that embody or are willing to espouse ideas that are palatable to the LCD--and willing to be exploited--for this type of situation to persist. And as other have said, there is always going to be someone that will sacrifice their artistic integrity and vision for money. So industry and artists are responsible for the stagnation that we see in mainstream rap--I won't call it hip hop.
There are artists out there that continue to create real, thought-provoking music with lyrics and beats that will stand the test of time, as opposed to those songs that are here today, gone tomorrow (To that list, I would add someone like Del). But as with other genres of art, it is rare that those people are widely appreciated in their time.
I guess the other question is how is "art" being defined?
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Hip-hop is the artistic side of the genre for sure. Poetry is the foundational keystone of hip-hop, and not everbody that "raps" is a Poet. Rap is to me, the poison filled expression of today's game. To me it is a symbol without substance. It's all about hooks and beats. There is no true storytelling power to "rap". I dig the cats that still bring the Poetic flow to the game. Cats like Common, Mos Def, Eminem, Jay Z and Nas. I miss the likes of Rakim, Tupac and Public Enemy. Those cats knew how to mesh it all together and when they did, they created art. Hip-hop is all about the happenstance expression, and it may appear to some that, we as a people, the founding culture of hip-hop, have either forgotten or have lost the thing that we used to bring the Poetry about....life. Everything's not about women with big asses, Bentleys, and jewels, but rather, it's supposed to be about our current state of existence, our pain, and our future hopes. We have sambos who sell a million CDs, and that to them is, the mark of their success, or, the mark of their progress