another reason for hip-hops decline
 

i know rap has become a billion dollar industry these days but i'm feeling the end of creativity is near. you've got mtv all over it and there are even hip-hop stations in portland, maine for gods sake. to most of these cats a classic hip-hop joint is "get low" by lil jon and the eastside boys. they don't know or care about the history, the trailblazers, etc... maybe in ten years of so there will be a resurgence.

If you really want to get down to it...

Blame Run-DMC and Kurtis Blow for commercializing rap.

i agree with that but even then there were some classics joints hittin the streets and eventually the mainstream.

Yeah, rap/hip hop has lost alot of it's creativity. That doesn't mean it's on the decline. Now it's more about style, personally that's part of what I've always loved about it. It's not always about what they're actually saying, alot of it's about how and why they say it. Now it's gotta look good, feel good and sound good. Not so much the lyrics but the skill in rappin' and the showmanship, the hype in it if you will.

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i agree with Doc.DGaf

thats Rap, not hip-hop. before you badmouth a genre you should get it right.

c'mon rap..suprise me for once!!

I think commercial rap entered a new era of repetition and plagiarism the minute the phrase "bling bling" became a cross-culturual phenomenon. Rap became even more of a gimmick than it was before 2000, and it continues to grow in lameness. There are now rap songs that sample rap songs that include phrases from the aforementioned rap songs, all because the formula sells (David Banner's "Don't Play With Me (Run Girl)" and Ying Yang's "The Whisper Song" are literally the same song minus a slight change in beat, slightly different effects, and different lyrics on the same basic topic). Nobody really cares 'cause the songs have a cool beat and they're danceable, but musically speaking, their similarities are atrocious.

I didnt really like it when Cassidy used Jay-Z's voice sample for Im a Hustla and T.I. using his for Bring Em Out. It was like they couldnt make up their own hook and had to use somebody elses.

If it sells then people like it. Ain't that the whole point? Make music people like. Music we can relate to. Not new original stuff, it doesn't matter if ten people have done the same song/verse! It's all in who's the people like better! I recorded a track a while back that was Edgar Alan Poe's The Raven with a hook and a few extra lines here and there, local radio played the f**k out of it! Everybody loved it even though I only wrote maybe...10-15 lines of it.

You want stuff that's got no sampling, remixes or whatever, stay away from rap. Stick to rock or reggae or something.