I'm just wondering how others felt, maybe I'm getting old. Anyway I don't get the feeling from most Hip Hop out now that I used to. And I'm not just talking new Artists I'm talking in general. There are exceptions sometimes Jay or Nas and even Jeezy or Ross give me a song or verse here and there that has that grime to it. Maybe it was because I was younger and more influenced by the music I listened to or could relate to it but I used to feel their lyrics, their struggle it seemed dark at times and even slightly scary ( old Wu and Mobb Deep) but now it's always uppity and glamorous.....And everyone talks about the party and the money, what happened to talking about whats real, being broke, hustling the hard knocks of life? I guess it's mostly the commercialization of it all but I just wondered if anyone else missed the grit in Rap. And if so who do you think can or would you like to see try and put the Grime back in Rhyme......so to speak.

Discuss......

I know what your saying. Thats why we need one more Jay-Z crack dealing album lol

Depends on where you're looking. Mainstream, yes.

But then again, singles have NEVER offered the best songs.

dude im only 18 and hip hop is dying. I hate that new age crap. like soulja boi. All i listen to is 2pac, Eazy-E, old ice cube. the only new stuff i listen to is if i think that rapper is real and true. I hate studio-gangsters. Lil wayne is hurting rap to, his lyrics dont make sense and you can barely understand him.

yea it is losing its grit i know what your saying. but theres still some cats out there like papoose and saigon and joell ortiz and even uncle murder haha people like that.

yea it is losing its grit i know what your saying. but theres still some cats out there like papoose and saigon and joell ortiz and even uncle murder haha people like that.

No doubt, and I get the feeling from time to time but overall there's something missing....a hunger for lack of a better term. Now cats know all they gotta do is dress cool and make a catchy hook and they're famous for a minute.....I miss the college football type heart and hunger Hip Hop used to have.

Gay 50 Cent says it all. It's more like hip POP nowadays. And don't be calling me old and cynical coz I'm just in my 20's. It hasn't just lost its grit, it has lost its soul.

No doubt, and I get the feeling from time to time but overall there's something missing....a hunger for lack of a better term. Now cats know all they gotta do is dress cool and make a catchy hook and they're famous for a minute.....I miss the college football type heart and hunger Hip Hop used to have.

its defintly missing something. you look at top hiphop hits and music videos and all that back in the 90s **** was way different. but i guess times are a changing. its sad.

Most of the hip hop fade stems from the demystification of the medium. It's much like the mob stuff if you ask me, once you take in what it's about.. letting the lifestyle that was often lead by these hard men swim around in your head, there's only so much internal/external dialog you can have over it. You may never understand it, but once you've gone over it, you've gone over it. The bases have all been covered. Been there, done that. You can't have your first kiss twice. **** is the way it is now because no one is interested in drug dealing and all that banging and rough housing. It's finally old news.

Me personally, I've taken it a step further, I find modern hip hop (the gangsta rap aspect especially) to be absolutely kid **** now. Even in retrospect much of the "my plight" "how I grew up" "my/our struggle in the U.S." rap content is ridiculous to me when it's put into perspective. There are some real f'kng problems going on in the world.. I mean you got mofos on this planet who have to eat frikkin DIRT to survive!! Literally!! An expression that I only ever heard used to tell someone to "piss the f off" - is actually a reality for some people!!

Let me not even mention the almost Roman like barbarism that continues in parts of the world and other beyond belief poverty. Now I know a lot of these hood cats grew up hurtin', but I'd bet you'd be hard pressed to find any who have lived in the hellish conditions of your typical black South African. Even the crybabies in my own life I've known who almost liked to whine about having nothing lived in shangri la in comparison. A steady flow of designer clothes and basketball kicks, TVs, Cable (even if they stole it shows such abundance in what they can attain), multiple gaming consoles, some cash in their pocket, decent food, running water, heat, air conditioning, and a roof over their heads they whole life.. and I'm going to sit back and listen and think it's deep when I hear the tales of a nicca who turned to a life of crime when he's already doing 100 fold better than most who walk the earth?

No doubt. The last couple of years its heavily declined.

Hip Hop has evolved!! It will never die nor lose its grit..Creative still rules hip hop..The artist have just become broad..Its from B Boppin to Mr. Wendal to **** the police to get all that and some...

Hip Hop has evolved!! It will never die nor lose its grit..Creative still rules hip hop..The artist have just become broad..Its from B Boppin to Mr. Wendal to **** the police to get all that and some...

Actually the art has become narrow. Club Rap has always existed in Hip Hop, it's just that there isn't much else now. There is less diversity not more, and i'm sorry but that is not evolution, that is devolution. A computer with fewer options and capabilities than another one is not more advanced, it's less advanced.

You have to remember that for alot of the history of Hip Hop it was an underground economy. See, it used to not be all about the money for mainstream and corporate America too. They didn't like Hip Hop, and they didn't want it to become part of the mainstream, so they didn't go near it even though it made money. As a result, it became this huge underground economy that supported itself and stayed close to the streets. If the streets weren't feelin you, you didn't last. Today however, mainstream and corporate America only care about money, so it is impossible for that kind of multi-million dollar economy to remain underground. As soon as it began to pick up speed, corporate America would swoop down, claim it and try to mass market and commercialize it. When a particular artist won't compromise, then they just find another artist like him that will.

I'm just wondering how others felt, maybe I'm getting old. Anyway I don't get the feeling from most Hip Hop out now that I used to. And I'm not just talking new Artists I'm talking in general. There are exceptions sometimes Jay or Nas and even Jeezy or Ross give me a song or verse here and there that has that grime to it. Maybe it was because I was younger and more influenced by the music I listened to or could relate to it but I used to feel their lyrics, their struggle it seemed dark at times and even slightly scary ( old Wu and Mobb Deep) but now it's always uppity and glamorous.....And everyone talks about the party and the money, what happened to talking about whats real, being broke, hustling the hard knocks of life? I guess it's mostly the commercialization of it all but I just wondered if anyone else missed the grit in Rap. And if so who do you think can or would you like to see try and put the Grime back in Rhyme......so to speak.

Discuss......

I feel what your saying fam, when you feel someones lyrics like it gives you chills to listen to what someone is saying because you can relate and it can really reflect on whats real, thats why i **** with the lox so much because it seems every verse styles or jada drops (not as much big sheek) i just feel the emotion they put into there lyrics. This isnt limited to just jada and styles at all there just an example but go pick up styles p super gangster extrodinary gentelemen asap!!!

Remember in the EPMD song where he says "...still I haven't seen one rapper living comfortably..."

Back then, emotion was in rap because it wasn't a pop minstrel show. I'd love for a sub sect of rap come back, with focus on lyrics, substance, and emotion. But human nature makes folks want to record what's going to make money...

I feel what your saying fam, when you feel someones lyrics like it gives you chills to listen to what someone is saying because you can relate and it can really reflect on whats real, thats why i **** with the lox so much because it seems every verse styles or jada drops (not as much big sheek) i just feel the emotion they put into there lyrics. This isnt limited to just jada and styles at all there just an example but go pick up styles p super gangster extrodinary gentelemen asap!!!

that styles p album is nice....green piece of paper is my favorite song. But you right, the lox has always kept it real since 94/95 or whenever they started. They love the rap game and have respect for its history...alotta rappers out now cant say the same and thats the problem. They sell out for more money...its too late to do anything about this now. Most rappers aint original anymore...its depressing. When i think back to the 90's i remember mobb deep, wu-tang, nas, jay-z, the lox, onyx, big L, talib and mos def, common, busta rhymes.....they all had different styles. No one that i named sounded alike....except for a couple here and there but they kept it real and different styles were accepted by the fans. Nowadays fans wanna hear the same bullsh!t over and over again...and you gotta be able to dance to it in a club.

big twin from infamous mobb and prodigy have always kept it grimey....**** the haters that hate on mobb deep for signing to g-unit.

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i for one hate lil wayne.

the new generation (joe budden, joell ortiz, lupe fiasco, saigon, papoose, termanology, crooked i and even game) need to step up and start releasing classics. im really feeling all those artists. there was a cat a while back named cage who released some dope albums like movies for the blind and hells winter but i havent heard from him since then. he was a good mc.

its amazing how soulja boy can go platinum of a totally bull**** track like crank dat or yah *****. that just tells you right there that the mainstream pop public prefers a catchy beat they can dance to.

there are still some great artists out there you just have to be on the look out for them. for the most part i try to ignore bow wow, hurrican chris and garbage like that.

It's lost it's grit. It has been repalced by Hip POP

Mainstream hiphop is basically pop music now. It is far from dead, but is "real" hiphop dying? Sure, a little. To find good rap you have to look for it now, cause you certainly wont hear it on mtv or mainstream radio, unless you are listening to radio at 3 am.

Most of the hip hop fade stems from the demystification of the medium. It's much like the mob stuff if you ask me, once you take in what it's about.. letting the lifestyle that was often lead by these hard men swim around in your head, there's only so much internal/external dialog you can have over it. You may never understand it, but once you've gone over it, you've gone over it. The bases have all been covered. Been there, done that. You can't have your first kiss twice. **** is the way it is now because no one is interested in drug dealing and all that banging and rough housing. It's finally old news.

Me personally, I've taken it a step further, I find modern hip hop (the gangsta rap aspect especially) to be absolutely kid **** now. Even in retrospect much of the "my plight" "how I grew up" "my/our struggle in the U.S." rap content is ridiculous to me when it's put into perspective. There are some real f'kng problems going on in the world.. I mean you got mofos on this planet who have to eat frikkin DIRT to survive!! Literally!! An expression that I only ever heard used to tell someone to "piss the f off" - is actually a reality for some people!!

Let me not even mention the almost Roman like barbarism that continues in parts of the world and other beyond belief poverty. Now I know a lot of these hood cats grew up hurtin', but I'd bet you'd be hard pressed to find any who have lived in the hellish conditions of your typical black South African. Even the crybabies in my own life I've known who almost liked to whine about having nothing lived in shangri la in comparison. A steady flow of designer clothes and basketball kicks, TVs, Cable (even if they stole it shows such abundance in what they can attain), multiple gaming consoles, some cash in their pocket, decent food, running water, heat, air conditioning, and a roof over their heads they whole life.. and I'm going to sit back and listen and think it's deep when I hear the tales of a nicca who turned to a life of crime when he's already doing 100 fold better than most who walk the earth?

Solid post.

You would think that at this point in time, some 30 something years after Hiphop was originated, it would be well beyond what brought it to the mainstream in the 80s.

Sadly, its stuck in the rut of being "hard", "gangster", "thugged out", etc.

I blame the corporations and the rap stars who sold their souls along with the Rodney King verdicts. Prior to April of 1992, Hiphop was self empowering to the people as a whole. There were many a song one could find that was positive in nature, on the radio no less.

Now its just self empowering to the individual and bragging about how much more stuff you own than everyone else.

Hip Hop has evolved!! It will never die nor lose its grit..Creative still rules hip hop..The artist have just become broad..Its from B Boppin to Mr. Wendal to **** the police to get all that and some...

Rubbish! The fact that people consider Soulja Boi and ****heads like that as hip hop proves it has not just lost its grit, but it shas sold its soul. In many years to come, the hip hop scene will end up like the pop scene if it goes on like this. It will become less authentic than rock because they still have small bands and the indie scene as well as new sub-styles. All hip hop is turning into is hip POP.

It is not just the commercialisation, but the fact that it is becoming GENERIC. I told ya all this before: http://www.boxingscene.com/forums/showthread.php?t=200688

dude im only 18 and hip hop is dying. I hate that new age crap. like soulja boi. All i listen to is 2pac, Eazy-E, old ice cube. the only new stuff i listen to is if i think that rapper is real and true. I hate studio-gangsters. Lil wayne is hurting rap to, his lyrics dont make sense and you can barely understand him.

IVe been saying this 4 awhile, he's a play on words rapper, and people this he's the ****. It's all money glamor and ho's. the talent is down, c'mon is souljah boy really a #1 rapper?
ide take the 18th letter over tha carter 3 anyday