Is hip hop dead? 13 years ago, Nas asked the same question. Personally, I think the producers of hip hop have been pushing rappers from poverty almost exclusively. While that may be noble, most middle and upper class audiences can't RELATE to the raps being created and are being mutually alienated by the lyrics. The infrastructure is working against them so only the independent artists are able to maintain their own hype. What we need is to weigh artist by social interest instead of their urban authenticity.
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Music is for everyone but difficulty allows the craft to be valued. Decades ago, hip hop was pioneering metaphors, flow-switches, jokes, and tongue twisters. Rap ability was the emphasis. Now, it's much more about heritage authenticity.
Heritage authenticity is often demanded by close-minded skeptics that believe in maintaining social norms, but the strange trade off is that those audiences seem to respond positively to traditions even when they aren't their own.
Although we believe that bad music is harmful in selling urban culture, it's refreshing that people have banded together to integrate poverty. Talent, education, and opportunity are great, but they aren't fairly dispersed and shouldn't be mandatory.
It seems that we've learned from the past and become numb to generational cliches due to experience-based wisdom, but there needs to be a balance between making life fair and making music that generates support.
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