written by dj hurryupnbuy

Ever since Nas' album a couple of years ago, there has been this talk of hip hop being dead. Truth of the matter is, the quality of hip hop has been diluting consistently for years, even prior to that. I blame it on the corporations who are taking over our art form. What once started out as DJs spinning breaks at a local block party, evolved into MC's telling stories of their struggles. And now, with the involvement of Corporate America, it has become a soap opera.

I used to work for this independent label and we made these shirts that read "YO! True Hip Hop is BACK!" The graphics were a rip off the old "Yo! MTV Raps" graphic. When I wore this shirt to my old job, my coworker asked me what exactly is "true hip hop?" I answered him by saying it when hip hop was still pure and just about the music. Taking out all this commercial garbage on the radio. He summarized "true hip hop" as music he truly enjoys, period. Makes you wonder...as similar as those two answers are, its different.

Back to my main point, how can we resuscitate hip hop and bring back its essence? I propose a couple of solutions to for this.

1. Get rid of about 50% of all hip hop content that is out there! Everybody wants to be a rapper. Everybody's got a brother or cousin or uncle that raps. What the fuck? Smack some sense into them because there is a 99% chance that they're horrible. It starts there but does not end there. People have to stop paying attention to rappers such as Soulja Boy and all these other garbage rappers on MTV/BET/radio, etc. Also, not every track by Kanye West and Lil Wayne is good. In fact, most of them suck. So please stop thinking they are the next coming. And if you think they are trendsetters, you are just unaware of the fact that they bite off other people that you just don't know about.

2. Let the young boys shine....(and females). I got much, MUCH respect for rappers like Jay Z, Nas, Busta and whoever that came up during the 90s that are still relevant. With that being said, I think it's time for some of these OG's to back up a little and share some spotlight with the young'ns. I'm a huge fan but a lot of these older cats are running low on ammo. Their rhymes are not as tight as they used to be. For example, when's the last time you really heard a good verse from Jay, honestly...? With them stepping back a little, it will encourage the young and darwinist MCs to work harder to maximize their opportunities. I constantly see the marketing ploy of magazines, categorizing the "new class" of rappers but I'd like to see it in action and find out who really wants it and who really has it, I mean...talk is cheap, right?

3. With the emergence of MTV in the early 90s, it brought on a revolution in the music industry. Music videos were introduced and in result, a whole new way to promote music. Since then, the music video industry has come a long way with some projects costing millions of dollars and while doing so, took away from the music itself. So I'd like to ask, "Is this really necessary?" Let's bring the focus back to the music. Fuck it, I'm going to go as far as saying "let's get rid of music videos." MTV doesn't even play them anyways. Just make music and release viral/teaser videos on youtube to promote the music.

And those are my fool-proof solution to resuscitating hip hop. If you got a problem with it, you can take it up with me here or on twitter (@hurryupnbuy).

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