 Is hip-hop dying in 2023? Do you think it's dying in 2023? I've got somebody who thinks differently or at least has an argument and I know where she based this off of. But again, is hip-hop dying in 2023? Watch this clip and tell me what you think. Is hip-hop music dying? As much as I'd love to deny it, that's a saying so. 2022 marks the first decline in market share for rap music ever. So why exactly is this happening? There are a few reasons for this. One of them is my personal observation and another one is just a fact. I think rap music is getting very, very saturated nowadays. Almost everyone and anyone is becoming a rapper. And because of that, the quality just isn't there as much anymore. Here's an example. No hate to the following artists. It's just an observation. Langley Stallion has a song with the future called Pressurelicious and it was revealed that she paid $250,000 cash for this feature. But after Future submitted his verse to her, she realized that her verses didn't really make sense with his verses. So then she went and changed her verse so it would make sense. And I think that right there is a huge problem because now it just seems like artists are just collabing to collab. There's no actual purpose and reason for it. And that Megan example just goes to show that these artists aren't working together on the song. They're just grabbing features, slapping them on and putting them out hoping that they go viral. It's just not enough to have two popular names on a song. You also have certain rappers that just drop albums every single week and they're not even of quality. They're not really taking time to perfect things and craft things and make them the best that they could possibly be. They're just rapping and playing it out so they can make money. We're also losing a lot of hip hop artists that are supposed to be the leads of this generation. Pop Smoke, Mac Miller, Juice World, Take Off, Accessors, Tentastic, y'all. I think the art of rap music is getting lost because to me rap music is about storytelling, sending a message. So much rap nowadays are just about drinking and smoking because it's easy and anyone can talk about these things. The genre is just very muddy right now and I hope it sees the light again. It's just that she talked about the storytelling because that actually eludes to that Lil Wayne clip we were talking about. Shout out to Yarm Ramps. Yarm Ramps. Appreciate you sharing that. We know where she got the source of that. There was a conversation, an article actually posted on Billboard back in October 2022 that asked this question. So she was repeating a lot of stats from that. But I think the conversation is layered. I remember seeing Troy Carter post about this on Instagram. He seemed a little upset. Like he wasn't really rocking with the sentiment. And I think there's a lot of truths, but there's both sides that have to be acknowledged. So is it dying? You say no, right? No, I don't think so. I think personally, I don't want it to die, but I think it's in a tricky space. All right. I'm not going to say it's hip-hop is dead like they've been saying for the last 20 years and it still goes around and achieving greater heights. Remember Nas had hip-hop is dead. I think Kara's hip-hop is dead. Everybody does that type of thing at some point. But hip-hop is, first of all, all this stuff isn't specific to hip-hop. To make the style in future situation is not just a hip-hop thing. All right. So some of the points she was making in this video were music points. But hip-hop specifically, I think hip-hop is dying more than we would like to acknowledge. All right. Rap is flourishing. Okay. All right. We look at it that way. But hip-hop is not respected by the younger generations. Like hip-hop was respected by the older generations, which is why I can actually say it's dying in some ways. Right now, there might be an argument against it, but this is my problem. And I'm all for hip-hop. When you look at the older generation, like 80s and 90s, that grew up when that culture was like banging and it was popping, it was becoming that thing. They love hip-hop. They love hip-hop. Hip-hop. That's what they love. I got to keep repeating it because it's a difference to hip-hop and rap. It is a difference. Right? You don't really hear young people say shit like I love hip-hop. They're not even aware of the culture in that way. They don't even think about it in that line and what comes with it. Because hip-hop is more than rap. It's more than music. There's all these other elements and culture. There's a lot of cultural elements. And today, we're in a period where there's been a lot of popular rappers that have downplayed hip-hop. I remember a clip, I feel like Lil Uzi, probably like 2018 or something. It was a clip where he was like rapping is a lower form of music or something like that. Was it like Post Malone or something? No, Post Malone said a different thing, but similar. And we let that stuff rock though. And there's a problem with that. The younger generation doesn't respect and uphold hip-hop and the idea of hip-hop in the same way. The impact is inevitably there. But when you don't trace it back and acknowledge it as that, you start to lose some of the heritage. You start to lose some of the impact when you go generation to generation on after that. But it's undoubtedly within the culture. The impact of hip-hop is 1,000 percent there. We see all these people dressing the way they dress. And it used to be a black way of dressing. And now it's everywhere and everybody's kind of dressing similar in that younger, hip-hurt way, whatever you want to call it. We see pop artists being called pop artists when they're rapping or they're taking hip-hop rap style production and making their pop hits. We see it everywhere. The DNA of hip-hop is there. The seed is only spreading. That part is not in flux. The part that's in danger is just the respect of the philosophy, the lifestyle, the overall culture of hip-hop. That's the part that I think is struggling because the respect for it is not there. And is it hip-hop because we're also seeing this greater culture of lack of respect for the elders in a way that you didn't see in past generations too. It's happened before because everything moves in cycles, but not in the most recent cycles. Everybody, they'll say, oh, this happens all the time and every generation might have complained about it. That's different. The youth are always like, oh, that's the old school. The old school is always complaining about new school, but right now, culturally, I think it could be acknowledged by a lot of people that it's more of an individual society. That other clip, we're not going to get too much into that topic, but when the economy changes, the approach to relationships and marriage changes. But it's not just the approach to marriage that's changed in this individual society. It's the approach to anything. How you look at older tradition, anything outside of you. So I think it's more elements and we can kind of continue to pull at what the elements might be. But ultimately, hip-hop, I feel like as a general culture term, it's not respected by the youth. So that puts it in a dangerous position. Let me take a quick second to say, if you're an artist trying to blow your music up or if you're a manager, a music professional in general, trying to help an artist blow their music up, I have something that's a game changer for you and it's completely free. 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You would kind of have the party rappers making that type of music versus the more conscious artists. And I think now we're seeing the impact of that where this older side probably didn't expect this side to win out, rap being what it is won out, became the more global mainstream thing. But you also push away this group of people from that culture and now they don't embrace it, but they're also the group of people making the most popular form of music. And it just completely overshadowed the right. That's what I think happens. That's what I think kind of played a part of it. But I mean, there are still artists who who do embody those cultural vibes, right? Like you have like your, you know, your J. Cole's, even if we go the newer ass, you got your court age, you got, you know, saying Anderson Pack ain't new. But, you know, I think there are enough J.I.D.s, M.S.A. Earth games, like there's enough quality artists who I think maybe don't culturally stand by what hip hop necessarily represents. Or maybe they're not aware that they're standing by, you know what I'm saying? Like they maybe aren't consciously trying to project that I'm taking part as culture. But like sonically and music wise, like what they talk about and things they push are right on par with it. You know what I'm saying? That's why I say the DNA of hip hop is not in trouble. It's only the acknowledgement of the culture itself. And when you do that, then it starts to be able to be hijacked into something else and position other a different umbrella than it actually is. Right? Calling hip hop something else. Right? Jesus Christ is white. You know what I'm saying? Enough time has passed. Like that type of thing. I'm just saying, like, you know, who knows what color hip hop is gonna be 50 years from now. I don't know 100 years from now. Like anything fast as you can just call it and do anything. Right? So I think there's two sides of it. It's the numbers. It's maybe three. So it's the concept around the culture and respect around the culture. It's the numbers itself. And then who's the third thing? There's one more thing. It'll come back to me. But let's just say the numbers, the numbers, I think where they're trying to pull from is diluted. Right? Because a lot of the numbers that they reference were because of the idea of hip hop being cutting edge. Culturally, hip hop has been more entrepreneurial than other genres. Hip hop has, because of that, been a better use of technology. It'll be more innovative. Right? But then that alludes to a different type of audience and consumption pattern. And what did we see when Spotify came out? They finally acknowledged the numbers that hip hop was doing because it was so damn clear. Hip hop's the number one genre. Killing everything. And we all already knew the impact that hip hop was having on the rest of the culture. If you were in the culture, the problem is when the genres begin to catch up in terms of being on new mediums, the proportion doesn't look the same. Right? If I'm here by myself, I got 100% of the pie. And then I add y'all in, I might only have 50% of the pie. But you could say my share has gone down a percentage in this specific new medium. And then you use that drop in proportion as if I've actually lost a step. When nothing changed over here, y'all caught up to me. And all of a sudden y'all are taken away from me because of it. That's not the fact. So the number side of it in many ways feels like when this article that was written on it felt like clickbait. You know what I mean? Whatever that is, what it is, I get how it goes today. But to some people's credit, I feel like even the sentiment that I saw from short quarter felt like a way to discredit hip hop again and again. There's many people who are protective. That goes back to what I'm saying. You're not going to find young people that are protective over hip hop. Like the energy that I saw when I saw Troy Carter's post. And I know me and the other was sharing that same sentiment. Yeah. I mean, and like you might have a good point earlier too, man. It goes back to the culture thing, but it's like what the culture that hip hop culture originally was meant to represent. I don't think it is as easy of a sale as rap culture because rap culture is very much not a blank slate, but it's very inclusive, right? Hip hop culture is not, it is inclusive, but I don't think it's as inclusive as rap culture is, right? Because rappers are tied to like some type of general culture pattern. Rap tends to be more about micro community. And you represent a certain subsection of rap. Like, hey, we have the rap umbrella. These are some of the core things that kind of got to be kept up with. But then from there, you shoot, we shoot off in 50 different directions, right? Makes it very easy to make it to mold it to whatever you kind of need to push it for or whoever you need to push it to. Like rappers are a lot more valuable than hip hop is. Hip hop is very like, no, this is where these are the values of the culture. This is what it stands for. This is what it represents. This is what we all about. And it's not as multiple as rap culture is. That goes back into the day society, man. Nobody wants to have anything specific. And this is the wrong way. This is the right way. This is specific value system. So a lot of these traditional columns and entities are being knocked down. So the whole can be accepted. And people are going with it because they put the sugar in the shit. That's what I think. Don't put sugar in my shit. You know what I think about when I say that? Capitalism. You damn like capitalism. Capitalism is always under, under all of it. Positive and negative. So you can't, it's hard to take away capitalism. That's just, hey, that's just the way we do. But no, when I say don't put no sugar in my shit. I think about kombucha. You don't like kombucha? I love kombucha. That's what I say. Don't put no sugar in my shit because I wasn't the earliest drinker of kombucha. I remember seeing it and hearing about it long before it was actually available in stores because I was following the company and just heard a story, read a story in like an ink magazine or something like that. The years later it becomes more commercial. It's available. I get onto it. I'm liking it. Got that just kind of strong and hitting you, right? Loving it. Then I think it was 2022 or 2021. It was a 20th anniversary of that main company. I can remember their name, but they had one called Sacred Life and it was blue. It's beautiful silver label. Amazing. That was my one. And that's why I knew exactly what the fuck that one tastes like. All right. Fast forward next year. I'm like, I know this girl. It was funny. Next year comes. That shit ain't tasting the same. I'm like, yo, what did y'all do? What's wrong? I tweeted the company, yo, why did y'all change the formula? They said, we ain't changed the formula. I said, I love this shit. Y'all changed the formula because I know this is all I drank last year. It tastes different and I got a really sensitive palate. Y'all put sugar in my shit and y'all put more water in that whole too. And then I was having a conversation with my girlfriend, not girlfriend. Well, she's my girlfriend sometimes too, but she's my wife. I don't have a conversation word the other day that they put sugar in a lot of these, which is now none of them are strong as what they used to be because they wanted to be more acceptable to everyone else. All right. You got people like us that fuck with it. It's an acquired taste. It comes with something. You got to be willing to go through that and all that shit. All right. But a lot of people weren't fucking with that. You being caught up in the bubble. You like, how could somebody not mess with that? No, a lot of people didn't like it. And they're trying to expand the popularity of the drink of the culture. Because once you get as big as the pie is, the pie got to get bigger for us to make more money. Add some sugar in the shit so it could be sweeter. It could be more likely for people to like. And now you fucked it up for someone who likes how I like it. You know what I mean? And I'm looking like, well, I go on a diet and shit. And for four I'm like, oh, this is a cool drink. Now I'm looking at some of these kombucha. I'm like, dang, I can't even drink this because it's too much sugar. And my channel put me on a diet, right? It's a kombucha flavored sprite or something. Exactly. And that's what they did to the culture of hip hop. If you're from the perspective of the old guard, we're not talking about the inability to innovate musically. That's a different conversation. And I could be, you know, avidly against that many times, right? Not the change in music sound and things like that, but the hijacking of the culture, the integration of the culture. Steve Stout would call it the tanning of America when the when the when the America gets tanned, that also invites more people into the culture. However, that that gets positioned. Sugar got put in this shit. Man, I feel like if if hip hop is dying, I feel like it's one the point piggyback what you said earlier, really, I think it's a reflection of society is growing this day for cultural institution way more than anything. You know, man, especially our generation, our generation below, we love to break down a good institutional structure. This is why I be mad at niggas. Niggas be breaking shit down just to break it down. The ego and all they don't even observe it is good enough, right? Or not. It's like, no, I'm just gonna break it down because it's there like a little toddler or like, hey, bro, this shit not even sitting there. But the fact is not there is imperfect. And we just want to knock all that shit down instead of doing the 10% that's the generation. Yeah, that's that's what we are. I think it's that right the growing cultural disdain for the institution and Latin music. Wait, niggas got disdain for Latin music, too? No, I'm saying those are the two reasons hip hop. Oh, it was a comma right there. Okay. But the crazy part is a lot of the Latin music that's popping right now is of that similar space. Right. That's what I'm saying. That by the wrap conversation we just had, that's not a good that's it's not the it's not the worst thing, right? Because I think it it rises everybody up, right? Will we know about a YB and Cordae or care about a YB and Cordae if there was no Lucy Burke? I think you can make an argument for both sides. You know what I'm saying? Ah, yeah, that's interesting. I feel like if you like that type of music, it would. But even even like just having the other side of it gives you a juxtaposition enough to really make you realize why you like one side of it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You can choose. You make your choice. Yeah. So it's like if one Latin music and Afro beats is hating the way it did because I don't know if everybody remember, when Afro beats and Latin music is like two pieces across the pandemic and like like a big global two piece like bow, Afro beats bow, Latin music, you know what I'm saying? Bow, Afro beats again. And I think that opened up to we just had a conversation about how, you know, we've always looked at America as being the influence of like popular music culture across the globe. I think for the first time we're saying the reverse of it, right? We're saying more of an effect of global music on us, right? It's like the British invasion, except it's the every continent invasion, not just fucking Britain. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. So we're saying that from K-pop, Latin music, Afro beats, who knows what other countries are going to get their signature music. Maybe that Russian music you hate so much. Yeah, I was thinking maybe more along the lines of like Swedish, electronic music or something. Y'all heard it from the chorus players. Y'all are not getting in. But it's like, it's like music fans everywhere have become so globalized, you know what I'm saying? And like you said, these different. It's like, if I can get, all right, there are things about this thing I don't like, right? Which like I said, to me, what I've seen in terms of people out the most about hip hop culture is the cultural institution part, you know what I'm saying? Like it's almost like a religion, you know what I'm saying? The way it was kind of practiced and preached is done. That's actually a better religion. You go back to this generation. Yeah. People don't like religion either. Yeah. Niggas don't like being told what they have to do. Yeah, they don't. You're right. Yeah, we inadvertently created this new version of it that no one has a badge to say they're technically a part of it, but it shows itself through cancel culture. Yeah, actually, yeah. But oh no, now we care enough to tell you. I'm not a Christian. I'm a feminist. It's the same shit, right? I'm not a Christian. I'm a Democrat. I'm not a Muslim. I'm a Republican. People just took those same behaviors of what's wrong, right? My values and who I decide to repel because I believe this and who are my enemies because I believe this. It took that same energy. I don't think humans can be without religion. I think it's human nature to add religious behaviors around whatever they love. Yeah. Everything else is just marketing. So it's just a semantic. I don't call myself that, but I'm doing the same shit. You know what I mean? So when it's paid, but look, I think if you look at the other concept like alluding to the youth like you were talking about earlier, there's also the innovation portion of it where the younger generation is always trying to create something new, right? And in that creation of something new, they begin to market to themselves and future generations and then that older thing loses out, right? Jazz came in popularity and right now Jazz is still a lasting genre, a powerful genre in itself, but it's more of a tool in pop culture for people to pull from, but not shine the spotlight on. You get what I'm saying? So will hip hop become more of a tool to pull from production wise, pull from with samples and old lyrics and inspiration wise, but no longer be at its pop height? Maybe that. I don't know, but the innovation question becomes interesting because I think this is the first time culturally the black community has been more aware and I think that's why we hear and see so many people like try to hold on to hip hop, make sure it gets this acknowledgement as the source of what's taking place on a pop scale, right? Because how often will we just create some shit and get away with it? I don't even say get away with it. Throw that shit away, right? Oh, this guy taken from us culturally and like, okay, we know that type of stuff has happened, but there's a lot of shit we'll just do and we'll just throw away because maybe it's coming naturally or like we're so fickle and we're creating new shit and it got lame so fast and then you see people in Europe do house music and go crazy with it. You know what I mean? This is my old shit and continue to innovate and continue to do old school soulful like voices and care about that type of thing and we all to the next and you'll see the prior generation say, oh man, you know, these people are doing that. That ain't nothing but this and the new generation, they not giving a fuck because we care about what we care about. We didn't even like that that much. So it's in this weird space where you have that combination on the innovation side of the fact that younger communities will innovate in general. I think the black community specifically innovates so fast because they tend to be more fickle in general, right? And are so busy creating that we don't take time to scale and maximize right on our own shit because we just all to the next things like inventors dilemma. Inventors always invent shit, but they might not be the person who came in and built the business around that because it was just one of my many inventions and we all stopped doing that shit. I get that. But you know, I think there's a lot of elements that are threatening hip hop and on the innovation side, those are two of it, right? You have the people that are the natural path of the youth and then the black community specifically since we're talking about hip hop that has its own behaviors that work for the creativity, but then have bit us in the butt when it came to actually scaling and building around the thing that we created. That's a good point. That's a good point. So weird space, man. It's a weird space, but hip hop in 2023. No, it's not dead. The culture itself, the entity, all right, the philosophy, the lifestyle is being threatened. The DNA, that should have though. Yeah, he ain't gonna stop that. Like no way. Just wait for the marketing flip though. Just wait for the marketing flip and we'll call it something else. I'm not going to get any knowledge of it. Hey, I mean, maybe hip hop is back or next thing you know. Like I've seen weird shit, man. I feel like some old people now, you've seen some shit and they'll be calling it something else and you like that ain't nothing but hip hop. And it's weirder to do it. It's easier for it to be a gray area with music, but there's now other things I'm not gonna get it to some of stuff now that some of stuff like it's political or whatever. But just like literally you'll see things being one way, like in 2005 and then in 2015, they'll call it something else and you're like, what do you mean? It's like documented. It's right there and they didn't agree with it. So you know, I'll summarize it in this. Remember, I basically say finessing used to take place over longer periods of time culturally, but now it's like there's a lot to you about some shit that happened last year and didn't wait with it. You're like, damn, bruh. But with that being said,