Does anyone have any concrete reasons why they think Rap is dying? My main reason is because they primarily use samples, they have sampled damn near everything 2 death.

There is NOTHING left 2 sample.....and they never really had much 2 say.

Rap is not dead, there is just an unhealthy focus on the wrong kind of rap.

Blingbling-rap is too silly for words. Can we go back to the word wizards with the amazing flows.

Please, Q-tip, just release that stuff yourself.

other than the samples, it's because it's simply not creative. the whole "bitches and hoes" theme that most rap has is wearing thin

HamsterHuey said:

There ya go. Nuff Said

muse87 said:

co-

It has become too mainstream. It used to be a new sound in music, an alternative, underground thing. A rebellious & creative form of expression. Like rock & roll, it's not dying, but it has become cartoonish & strayed from the authenticity that made it great to begin with. It's now the most homogenous form of music, in both style & sound.

Maybe someone will revitalize it like has happened for rock several times.

Um... there's one primary ingredient missing:

SKILLS.

Both lyrically and musically, Hip-Hop is essentially dead, and has been so since around 1995, with the advent of the MBG (Materialistic Bling Generation). Puffy started the downfall, period. The "Dirty South" shit cemented it's demise.

It has NOTHING 2 do with sampling. Back in the day, sampling was done heavily, but CREATIVELY, often using samples from semi-obscure records.

At the same time, there was very talented drum programming, and there were also actually DJs.

Now the drum programming (mostly loops) sucks... boring, uninteresting, lazy, and just plain OFF.

If there is any sampling, it's not creative little segments creatively looped and/or overlapped... it's the whole damn SONG, or the verse or the chorus that is sampled.

Lyrically and vocally? FORGET about it.

SKILLS, I tell U, G 2 G. SKILLS R missing, and the youth doesn't seem 2 care, because they're used 2 this shit now.

Giovanni777 said:

I totally agree. Creative sampling is one of hip hop's great innovations. Even not-so creative sampling, like the Sugarhill Gang's Rapper's Delight was incredibly fresh because of the creativity of the lyrics, and because it was a pretty new thing at the time.

Im not biased against todays lyrics cuz sum lyrics from 25-30 years ago was just rediculous.

what died to me was the spirit. It was mostly about having fun back then, of course there were some beef but people left it on wax. in the search tobe bigger and better than the next, ego got the best of most of them and they began to live up to the image. with each generation the problem grew deeper....blaaaaah i just grew bored witht eh topic hopefully bleh

and hip hop was BASED off samle from the beginning so im not buying that bullshit.


sayin be creative with samples?

rappers delight...hello? wtf was creative about using a whole instrumental!



dont get me wrong i prefer old school rap but come on, sum people are being unfair

Giovanni777 said:

S-K-I-L-L-S

Put 25 thug wannabee's in a room..I bet 75% can rap well enough to throw down a verse in a studio...
But, I also bet you 90% of them couldn't tell you what a chord is..or how to play one on an instrument...
Thats the Problem !

Rap itself isn't the problem. It's that slow ass tempo and those weak ass sounding drum machines that they use that's the problem. If rap died tomorrow, it wouldn't matter, because that slow tempo and those weak sounding drum machines are what dominate R&B also.

Its like any other thing, its been BLED dry, its been Milked for all its worth, and now it has to crash and get back to its basics again.

Just look at the examples:

In the Early 80's you had Motley Crue and Bon Jovi, and once they SOLD everyone from Trixter to Slaguhter came about and every kid with long hair and hairspray got a deal.

In the 90's you had Nirvana and Pearl Jam but then you got bombarded with youth rock with flannel shirts and jeans who sang about nothing but death, it went nowhere

In the later 80's you had Boyz II Men, and once that blew UP what did you get hit with...Meno of Vizion, Next, 112, etc....

In then in the later 90's you had Britney Xtina and Backstreet and Nysnc, and then once that sold trillions, what did you get Oaktown 357.

Its really like anything else, the industry is a machine right now, and has been since MTV sold itself in the mid 80's, everyone wants to just cash in on whats out there already, theres no need to create something new at a label or GROWING an artist, people at labels are paid to look for what is selling and how they can get someone who looks the part and has their GIMMICK for their label.

These fools started the slow death of Rap..











...there's your History lesson for the day.

it´s dying a looooong death, that´s for sure

garganta said:

I know, right?

HamsterHuey said:

I couldn't agree with you more! What happened to the REAL Hip Hop ala KRS 1, Poor Righteous Teachers, and Rakim. God , there are too many to list! It seems at times that with the deaths of Tupac & Biggie really great Rap died with them. The Crunk movement & Soulja Boy, Cash Money, and the VAST majority of that Dirty South crap have dragged a viable art into the gutter. I suppose that's why I LOVE the true rap ARTISTS like Mos Def & Talib Kwali. I guess now-a-days you have to hunt and search for classic raps and beats... how depressing.

RenHoek said:

They're hiding it on purpose. They know the rap out that is promoted is killing the industry but instead of doing anything about it, it keeps getting glamorized. I kinda blame it on the deaths of Pac and BIG since they recorded variations of hip-hop and because of that you have a lot of people preaching the same old stuff.

obviously you dont listen to hip hop east west or southern hip hop. hip hop is not dead. they both play to too distinctly different crowds based on geography. go check out some new shit and shut ur ignorant mouth: ii trill, the nigger tapes, carter 3, immortal technique the 3rd world, the roots rising down, atmosphere when life gives you lemons paint that shit gold. living legends the gathering, k'naan, prolyphic reanimator, katskills

That's telling them.....

viciuzurban said:

Don't bother. They think rap is summed up by either 50 Cent or "U Can't Touch This".

Cinnie said:

I wouldn't call either rap. That's garbage.

Cinnie said:

Watch BET in 5 minutes.....

Graycap23 said:

The fuck are you talking about?
Go listen to your local snooze jazz radio station for your favorite artists.

Cinnie said:

Hurry, I think your girl Norah Jones is on.

Who cares?! Let's celebrate

Graycap23 said:

Well, Theodore Unit, Madlib, MF Doom, PB Wolf, and the late great J Dilla continue to mine the stacks and create hip-hop jewels. Even Kanye West is relatively inventive at finding new hit-pop hooks from heavily-sampled artists Barring them, and a few other exceptions, you have a point.

Ok, here is the bottom fucking line...hip hop is dead for the old school heads like me, but its fresh and new for the younguns. My cousin just graduated from HS and she loves rap music. She grew up in Atlanta and all she likes is the dirty south becasue thats what she grew up on. So there you have it, plain and simple.

Q: Why is Rap dying?

A: Part of the problem is the fact that some of the modern-day MCs can't write intelligent lyrics or develop great rhyme skills (which were the points Ice-T was trying to make within his feud with Soulja Boy).

But I personally say that the DJ/beatmakers/producers are at fault for the real problem, which is the music itself. No one can seem to come up with any new sounds with their keyboard synths/workstations at the moment. Also, the tempo of the average hip-hop tracks has stay within 90-95 BPM (Beats Per Minute) for freaking 16 years straight now (1993-2008).