Feature: The Death of Hip Hop?

Many critics and fans argue about the demise of hip hop music. Actually it was the rapper Nas who kick-started this controversial notion with his album Hip Hop is Dead in 2006.

It is safe to say the good old days of beatboxing and rhyming on street corners for fun or to prove your talent is over.

Hip-hop is now a business. This means that like a business, a product has to sell in order to become successful.

Originating in the streets of New York during the 1970's, hip-hop music today enjoys its new abode in the southern parts of America.

Here is an example of two rappers from the 'south' to prove that hip-hop is still alive and kicking.

With Lil Wayne's music dominating the hip-hop industry as proven by his incredible catalogue for the last couple years, it's no surprise that he is also dominating the Billboard and Soundscan charts this year where records were broken

Some say when you're in pole position, you don't care who is trailing, which im sure the Lollipop hit single assured Mr Wayne to not give a shit.

His long anticipated album, Tha Carter III, shocked many with its first week sales, selling just over a million copies. A rarity in hip-hop, and only done once before by 50 Cent 's Massacre album in 2005

Another heavy hitter was the self-proclaimed King of the South, T.I's Paper Trail album which just sold over half a million records in its first week, and being certified platinum shortly after with 1,389,100 sold copies.

Hip-hop music's downfall can also be blaimed on the internet, which allows anybody to post up their music leaving us with an influx of talentless individuals at times. Congrats to those who can actually rap and use the web as promo!

Also with the web making everything so easy, users can download music instead of the conventional way of going to a record store and purchasing an album.

Downloading for free is now a common thing for many, (including myself) which sees artists sell less and less albums every year.

People tend to buy music aimed at commerical audiences, and those less commercial hip-hop albums always get heavily downloaded and leaked on the internet before its release date.

A thought to those sore losers: stop crying because your album is like frozen food that just chills on a self!

However an album does not have to possess good quality music because it is high selling- perhaps a lot of people are just stupid for buying it.


image source: photo bucket