Yes, a disgraceful one. Even the underground isn't producing much really worth mentioning, not for a while. Best album I heard last year was Prodigy's.

Prodigy, Cannibal Ox, Aesop Rock, Dead Prez, Public Enemy, Jedi Mind Tricks...

Lil Wayne is all swagger, style and flash and his rhymes are highly entertaining. He isn't that bad and he's actually good compared to most mainstream rappers today in fact I'd say he's one of the best as far as mainstream goes.

True, but Lollipop is really, really horrible. I like his mixtapes, but not enough to listen to them often.

I wasn't saying his music is particularly credible or anything just that I'd much rather listen to him than G-Unit because at least Lil Wayne is entertaining and aware of it and utilizes that to make mainstream rap that is actually okay (when most is just detestable crap.)

Yah, I'm talking real great records here. I'd go as far as saying that some of the releases may tolerably be described as being "good". But not much of any genuine super-quality brilliance is coming out at all either in the mainstream or underground, and it's been a long time since those days indeed. Anybody who wants to claim otherwise is only deceiving themselves.

If we're talking the last 8 years, I consider all these classic albums. Not 5-star material, but very, very good. Hip Hop's not as good as the 'golden era', but it's certainly not dead.
Labor Days
Float
How To Sell A Soul
None Shall Pass
The Cold Vein
God Loves Ugly
The Undisputed Truth
Lets Get Free

I agree that it's not dead. But I also don't think it's any more alive and well than the dated genres commonly performed in the indie scene and so forth - except in the sense of still being a mainstream pop format.

The song itself is crap. Pop/Rap ****. Thought Wayne was a hardman gangster. But this is like some Britney Spears ****. Sucking a lollipop and singing like he lost his balls in a card game. He ain't ganagster rap so he shouldn't pretend he is. If he'd admit he's pop/rap then it wouldn't be so bad.

I give 'Lil Wayne some credit because of his work ethic, but the vast majority of what he does is pretty terrible, IMO. He does have a handful of songs where he seems to be stumbling upon something decent, but the ratio of bad songs:good songs is embarassingly high.

El-P, Blu & Exile...

Meh. GLU wasn't terrible, but there are better Atmosphere albums. His two most recent albums, not to mention the 4 EPs that dropped in 07 were superior, IMO.