To respond to DJ Chameleon: it's okay and understandable that hip-hop would change and veer off in new directions. I just don't happen to like most of the new music. If had branched out in a different way, and the rap I hear on the radio was more creative than what is being played, I wouldn't have a problem with it.
Here a few other reasons I dislike the 'new' rap:
Loud, obnoxious, (unlike old school, which actually had things to say)
style over substance (again, it all seems to be about bling, I'm not getting any meaningful messages from what's on the radio)
Obviously, you didn't get Nas' message that he was saying, not so much 'hip hop is dead,' but the spirit of hip hop is dead. In financial terms, hip-hop is more successful than ever, but Nas just feels a lot of the integrity has been taken out of it.
To respond to the latter part of your post, yes hip-hop is branching out and reaching other cultures. I hear this bada*ss hip hop station whenever I go to Las Cruces, NM, that plays all this Latino rap, which has really good beats and boasts very cognitive lyrics. You're right, that there is good stuff out there, and people need to look to find it. I just think that what they always play on the radio is such garbage, but obviously it's all attributed to what people like, and if everyone liked the same music, we wouldn't have this forum, because we get to share and also dispute what music is good, and what sucks. I think most of the people on this forum understand that what the mainstream likes sucks, and that's why the punk thread is always so popular on here. That said, I probably didn't even need to make this thread, but I had just gone to South Carolina, and there were these hip wanksters macked out like Lil Jon, and I just thought it was really sad.
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