No, i only brought up Kanye because he is the symbol of contemporary rap. Sorry, his fans know EXACTLY what i am talking about and if they can't take the fair criticism than they really are absorbed in his own narcissism.

Rap today is a corporate ghost.. there is nothing new, innovative, expressive. WE ALL KNOW IT
Lets be honest, can we even call most of the new artists music rap? Are they even rappers?

i did get your point, SuchFriends.

it is corporate. but you're taking it to hyperboles and i just have to disagree.

yes. we've been through this in the last few pages. let's not again.

Here is the point. Rap music died in the 90s.. a few artists from that period kept it alive in the 2000s.. new rap is a reflection of new society, but that is entirely my point. Rap wasn't a reflection of society, it was a critique..

All your "albums" of the year selections prove my point more than yours...

this conversation has grown inexplicably silly.

I'll be back later.

interestingly, i'm confident about my taste and can go great lengths to defend each and every album on my list.

you're coming across as a hater to me..

Is it what it is.. all the new rappers are mediocre, and sure, if folks really love mostly rap music they will continue to listen. However many of us moved on to other genres.. there are few genres of "new" art and expression, but rap music hasn't been that in ten years at least

This is not an attack on anyone here for liking any of the new artists but rather in the spirit of what rap music is about, a critique

I think Kendrick is very obviously the most popular rapper in the game right now, which actually surprised me because his music is not rooted in pop song structures, and his lyrics are sophisticated and challenging and literary, and certainly beyond the comprehension of the average 9th grader.

So I'm guessing Eminem still reigns supreme with dumb little white kids.

But yeah, Kendrick is huge among music fans in general. He is too chill and unassuming to attract the kind of hatred that some folks have for Kanye. But if Kanye didn't dare everyone to hate him, he would be Kanye. Fewer people hate Kendrick... if anyone hates Kendrick besides Geraldo.

I just did some high school subbing a while back, and I heard a lot of Earl Sweatshirt/OF jargon. Random shouts of "Golf Wang!" and such. I also remember heading Young Thug's name pop up. Had a nice chat with one kid about Joey Badass. But I still saw as many Eminem shirts as I used to see Metallica tee's in '93. There needs to be some new blood in them hallways.

Again, its not about you or your personal taste. Im not intending to criticize you in my critique of the art itself. I don't think anything bad about you or anyone else for liking what you like, however i will always argue about the quality and integrity of the art itself (or lack thereof)

I don't remotely hate on fans of radio pop music, let them have their fun, but if they try to convince me that such music is some kind of profound statement??

Rap music has become exactly what many of us don't like about pop music, its lost its soul. Its not art, its corporate. And i don't blame these artists, college football is a soulless entity hhh but i totally get why kids want to play football or bball. However i don't think we can talk aboit football being an art neither can we talk about contemporary rap being such.


Today rap music is the Lakers

Yes, the stuff about 2 Live Crew was crazy. FYI youngsters, back then people were also scared of Public Enemy, Snoop and even the fucking Beastie Boys when Licensed to Ill was big. Here in the UK one national paper lead a campaign to get Snoop kicked out of the country when he was here on tour. I remember my Dad showing me a story in another national paper about PE intentionally injuring their fans at a concert by flinging coins at them.
I forget exactly what it was about the Beastie Boys.

Yep.

Maybe its time the kiddies invent their OWN music?
Its kind of sad, that the 2000s might be the first generation in past hundred years that failed to invent their own genre of music or contribute their own unique subculture.

Did we adults fail them?

Beastie Boys opened up for Madonna in mid 80's and in their concert in Houston tossed full beers into the crowd and were lewd as all fuck and were then banned from performing in Houston for almost a decade I think. This happened in other places as well.

Ahhhh the Motley Crue approach ;)

There was certainly a clear and dramatic change in hiphop around about the year 2000. New York was no longer the focal point, regional scenes got more attention, groups became much less prevalent, sampling and DJs were being replaced by synths and software.
New York hiphop had become bloated with people putting out 20 track albums with 10 mins of skits, the New York underground was just a load of people rapping about how rap sucks, which sucks too. Rawkus lost it. Tribe split, Gang Starr faded away and Premier got boring, Wu Tang had spread itself so thinly with 1 zillion solo projects that they lost the trust of their fans, Mos Def became an actor, lots of other groups who had been dependable in the 90s kind of faded away or split (e.g. De La Soul, Brand Nubian, CoFlow, Kool G Rap, EPMD, Mobb Deep, BootCampClick). The biggest rap stars of the last 10 years had ended up murdered, plus a few others died. Nas never made another record as good as Illmatic (and nobody learned the lesson than less tracks on a rap record is more). Snoop hooked up with the Neptunes and became a pop star. All that was left were business rappers like Dr Dre and Jay-Z, and record labels were more interested in if a rapper had a six pack than rhymes.
It really did feel like the bottom fell out of the genre, and pretty much every hiphop fan I spoke to at the time and for years afterwards was at a loss as where to find good new stuff (aside from whatever involved MF Doom, Madlib or Ghostface or also OutKast).

Even Outkast lost their soul... i mean its a natural digression that when artists become mainstream they lose touch with the roots of their art but what is sad about rap music is none of the coming generation of rappers had that same soul and sense of purpose to be able to replace them...

Rap in the late 2000s is what music in the early 60s was, a pompous caricature of what it once was..

Hence why the kiddies need to create THEIR OWN GENRE of music, but they haven't.. so it again begs the question, did we adults fail them? Are WE the narcissists?

Ok, I like Vince Staples (or at least I like Blue Suede although I'm turning a deaf ear to that ticky drum thing). I just listened to about 5 songs by Joey Badass and one was very good and the others were fine, certainly better than most new things I've listened to in the last 10 years. Lupe Fiasco I already heard and don't like much. Kendrick is good.

@ Toilet & Bowels

listen to Shabazz Palaces.