[Illah]

This is practically exactly what I've been saying for years, and slowly but surely it's been popping up in the mainstream media. I thought it would happen much more quickly, but I guess the market moves far slower than taste.

I really got into hip hop in the 90's and it's been pretty much been my primary musical choice for 5+ years, and I've listened to thousands of hours of music with minimal exposure to violence and misogyny. If only this crap hadn't been shoveled down America's throat for the past 10-15 years I bet people would have a whole different impression of the music.

Quote:

Artists who never jumped on the gangsta bandwagon point the finger at the boardroom. They accuse major labels of strip-mining the music, playing up its sensationalist aspects for easy sales. "In rock you have metal, alternative, emo, soft rock, pop-rock, you have all these different strains," says Q-Tip, front man for the defunct A Tribe Called Quest. "And there are different strains of hip-hop, but record companies aren't set up to sell these different strains. They aren't set up to do anything more of a mature sort of hip-hop." ... "When I first signed to Tommy Boy, [the A&R person] would take us to different shows and to art museums," says Q-Tip. "There was real mentorship. Today that's largely absent, and we see the results in the music and in the aesthetic." That result is a stale product, defined by cable channels like BET, now owned by Viacom, which seems to consist primarily of gun worship and underdressed women.

http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,...653639,00.html

--Illah

 

[ken36]

Whatever.

 

[fat pat]

good...different rap needs more press. hopefully someone thats in charge of a major rap label cares more about art than making a buck

 

[choomanchoo]

W O R D.

peas and whiz out.


homie

 

[JadeEast]

Hip hop has become a business game they hustle what sells.
Can't blame the big labels it's an inside job.

 

[DavidMahler]

I think for some, Hip Hop just lacks too much musical validity for it to be marketed differently.....
I have a lot of hip hop recordings, but I have to go searching the vaults of stores to find recordings that are good hip hop recordings, most of the available hip hop is samples of other people's music, fake drums looped together, and insults to women and people of different races.

Thats what sells

 

[Illah]

Quote:

Originally Posted by DavidMahler /img/forum/go_quote.gif I think for some, Hip Hop just lacks too much musical validity for it to be marketed differently..... I have a lot of hip hop recordings, but I have to go searching the vaults of stores to find recordings that are good hip hop recordings, most of the available hip hop is samples of other people's music, fake drums looped together, and insults to women and people of different races. Thats what sells

Well according to that article sales are down almost 50%...it's not selling anymore. But yeah, it's hard to market non-mainstream hip hop. Basically the labels have painted it into a corner. So many people are so turned off by the idiocy of southern hip hop and bad gangsta-rap that anything with a boom-bap beat immediately is labeled the same way.

The same happened to rock in the late 80's and early 90's. It got so foolish with the hair bands and glam-rock that people largely turned away. The ironic thing is that turning point allowed hip-hop to dominate, and now hip-hop has done the same thing. The cookie-cutter goofballs on MTV right now are the hip-hop equivalent of Ratt and Nelson.

One day a hip-hop Nirvana will come along and bring back the artistry. There's a million candidates out there right now, but the best are very afrocentric. That's not a bad thing, but it limits their mass appeal.

I'm amazed guys like Mos Def haven't taken off. Those are the type of artists that maintain machismo without giving into cheap stereotypes.

--Illah

 

[Thelonious Monk]

my answer to this topic: http://youtube.com/watch?v=geIsWq5xOSE

also:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=hJDLRCXR2ZM

 

[tru blu]

Strange to hear "maintain machismo without giving into cheap stereotypes." True, there's always been some element of male chest-pounding in hip-hop, but I think one thing that happened by the late '90s is that the role of women in the music was severely limited. Think back to Salt-N-Pepa, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah and even further back than that to Roxanne Shante and Sha-Key of the Funky Four Plus One, and you realize that the whole gangsta misogyny thing just pushed women rappers either off the table or into a little corner. I'm down with Mos Def and the Rawkus posse for not promoting misogyny per se (except maybe Pharoahe Monch), but they also didn't get beyond "machismo" enough to provide space for their female contemporaries who spit rhymes.