Bulletin Board Archive

Topic: Hip-hop is alive and well

1. Mar 11, 2007 05:28pm by NRG - livin the art that is life ! www.64111clinic.com fam www.nrginmotion.com massage www.myspace.com/nrginmotion world community Location: havenhouse KCK/ 64111 Clinic 4 Life
   COMMENTARY By JENEÉ OSTERHELDT The Kansas City Star Reports say hip-hop sales are slumping. They say people are tired of rap music and its negative images. They say big business is ruining the music and the culture. Hip-hop is dead, is what they say. You know what? I’m tired of half-naked women in videos, too. I’m tired of songs about sex, drugs and money, too. And, yes, last year I bought more soul and rock albums than hip-hop albums. But let me just say that hip-hop is far from dead. Buy an album by Common, Mos Def or Lupe Fiasco. Try the Roots, Gnarls Barkley or OutKast. Forget what you heard; hip-hop is alive. It might be going through an early midlife crisis, but it’s living. “Hip-hop is no more dead than my foot is a brick of gold,” says JT Quick, a Kansas City DJ and KPRS 103 Jamz radio personality. “If that’s the case, hip-hop has been in the ground for a long time.” Hip-hop, like every other musical genre before it, is reaching a tipping point. “In the ’70s and ’80s, rock was in an age of decadence. Rock stars were demigods; lots of jewelry, big mansions, expensive cars, groupies galore,” JT, 31, recalls. It sounds a lot like the current state of hip-hop. And like rock, hip-hop is multifaceted. Just like rock became the umbrella to grunge and punk and metal, hip-hop is on its way to becoming an umbrella, too. “Hip-hop has reached critical mass and is at the point of its own big bang,” JT says. “The weight of hip-hop trying to be so many things to so many people is too much. Boom! It will fracture, and everyone will find their piece, and that will be that. It will buckle under its own bloated ego and split apart. Many parts of hip-hop have already become assimilated into other music forms. Many more will follow.” Check out reggaeton, a blend of Spanish hip-hop and reggae. Or UK grime, a stew of hip-hop and electronica. Or the many house mixes of hip-hop favorites. And rap-rock has been around for a while with Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and lighter groups. Even more pop-oriented stars, such as Lily Allen, Gwen Stefani and Gym Class Heroes, take pages from hip-hop. DJs mash up the styles and twist hip-hop into new shapes, too. Danger Mouse made quite a scene when he dropped “The Grey Album,” marrying Jay-Z vocals from “The Black Album” with beats from “The White Album” by the Beatles. He went on to do critically acclaimed albums with MF Doom and Cee-lo Green. Both break the mold of what people think of as hip-hop. Locally DJ Ataxic puts a new twist on the music every Saturday as resident DJ at Skybox in the River Market. He mixes and mashes hip-hop with everything from Nirvana to the Jackson 5. And when he gives in to top 40 hip-hop, the hypersexual songs that people often request, he switches it up. He’ll play the beat to a popular but degrading song by Young Dro, but he’ll lay the lyrics by a purist, such as Common, over it. “I play music that I think is fun and creative,” Ataxic says. “Hip-hop is going through a lot of negative changes, but in order to realize the good, you have to see the bad. Girls, guns and rims can only sell for so long. Creativity will come back, and we will stop having so many one-hit wonders. But hip-hop will never die. It’s a culture and a music that is alive and strong. It will just change, hopefully for the better.” JT Quick looks forward to hip-hop’s new movements as the younger generations come up. “I first liked hip-hop because it was different,” he says. “Hip-hop is in its late 30s now. It’s time for hip-hop to sit back in the easy chair and let the next generation get the job done.” [size=9:a72dd23848]nrg note: This article appears a another beacon of light at a time when the nay sayers are circling to pick the body of decomposing hiphop clean. thank you jenee, for the comformation that hiphop "the culture" does indeed still have a strong pulse coursing through its core and around the world. so much so that this weekend both day and night hiphop is happening in the kc metro so much even the most devout heads in the local scene are having a hard time sleeping cuz there is so much to choose from. WE here at the hiphopkc make a compelling statement locally that " hiphop is not only alive and well, but thriving, growing, organizing, and taking itself and its future to heart" to the K.I.M. kc hiphop to the rest "Yall ain't seen nuthin yet don't blink"[/size:a72dd23848]
2. Mar 12, 2007 08:28pm by DEMENCHA
   A couple Saturday mornings ago, I went to the studio's at hot 103 for the "generation rap" show where a panel of high school kids talk on air about various topics week to week. The Saturday I went, the topic was "Is Hip Hop Dead." I wanted to get the perspective of the younger generation. I didn't leave with much. I'll just say that. But props to Quick for turning out the peanut a couple weeks ago. Anyone else got thoughts on this?
3. Mar 13, 2007 05:31pm by DjShad
   Rap and hip hop is the new disco just waiting for the crash (i.e chicago comisky park 1979), it will happen then beautiful music from the essence will be back. babylon has to be destroyed before it can be built back up again. a group of us have had this discussion for years, we even are taking bets on it its dying on the mainstream level because if you check the charts last year some of the biggest sellers are disney records. I tell ya pop and disney is making a comeback. i will discuss that theory later
4. Mar 13, 2007 09:54pm by MILES - [url]http://www.MilesBonny.com/[/url] Location: KCK
   In recently contemplating the death of pop hip hop in the mainstream, I found myself becoming surprisingly happy. I can't wait.
5. Mar 15, 2007 05:22am by (thePhantom*) - www.myspace.com/thephantom816 www.myspace.com/phantomusic www.thephantom.t83.net no words necessary just check the music. rapper.singer.producer
   Hip-hop has a snowball effect...hip-hop will be dead if you think it is. We all are hip-hop we're not dead, right? We just need to constantly reinvent... thats the key.