The Downfall of HipHop began when...

[Roman Brady]

All this thread proves is that there is no answer. Because depending on age and personal taste, everyone will always have different theories on "when" hip-hop's "downfall" started. It's really a personal thing. There will never be a REAL "moment" that began the so-called downfall. It's all about when YOU, personally, stopped being as big a fan/listener as you used to be. For me, it was 2005 with Laffy Taffy, but people have been talkin' this shyt since the 90s, and probably before that. I knew people in the late-90s who swore shyt ain't been the same since PE and Rakim were on top. shyt never stops. There's a kid somewhere right now who loves this shyt right now and won't feel the same in 2024, and will probably not give a solitary shyt about it by 2034. And it'll have nothin' to do with how good/bad the music is by then. It'll be cause it's not the music he grew up lovin'.

I agree with what you are saying but only to a degree cuz even old skool fans of rakim and PE that hated where music was headed (in their heart of hearts) had alternatives black thought, roots, canibus, dead prez and thats not mentioning the old cats that were still doing it. In the era we have now no one is around, there isnt an epmd, there isnt a gangstarr, kool keith, lord finesse, mic geronimo, kool g rap, digable planets, dmx, helter skelter, jeru, scarface e.t.c There has been an ethnic cleansing of familiar and talented artist, they've been replace by kids with simplistic repetitive lyric/songs. This isnt a case of just getting old the landscape has completely changed for the worse. Is there even an LL equivalent in todays game? they are all laid back and soft.

We already have sissfied rappers, others pushing the gay narrative like young thug/macklemore. The message is all but lost and the production levels arent that great.Most of the top sellers arent even black and the ones that are are c00ns. How exactly can the game get worse than this in 20 years?

 

[Roman Brady]

When the Internet era took over.... Once all albums began leaking and ANYBODY could drop a mixtape/album.....

The quality of the music began to drop. It became more a having a hit song/ringtone than having a soild body of work.... Rap Groups started dying, videos stopped being played. Rappers started beefing on social media than on songs.

I would say sometime between 04-07 when the downfall began

thread

 

[Wild self]

-when biggie and pac died, shyt opened up the lane for lame ass nikkas to come in like hawks and swoop in and try grab a piece of their legacy

-when the south started getting heavy mainstream exposures, i'm sorry but you can't deny this all the trashy era's of rap originated from the south. crunk, autotune, ringtone, trap. all that nonsense came from there at least up here even when it was just boring ass boombap and soul samples a majority of the artist tried to bring substance to the game. the south did have some swangin times like that h-town chopped and screwed ish and but all that other shyt. don't get me wrong there are southern rappers that can spit (THE GOAT JAY ELECTRONICA) but all these mainstream cats tried to be like and copy each other and left room for no substantial progress.

-gangsta rap, don't deny this also when nikkas thought it was cool to sell drugs, gangbang, and kill kill kill murder murder murder you could already tell that this shyt was not going to go places, now before you get mad i fukk with gangsta rap but the gangsta rap y'all nikkas promoted was just dry, boring, and tasteless you had nikkas like 50 cent, plies, e40, the game (i fukk with him when he don't do that gangsta shyt), rick ross, all them nikkas should have not been handed the mic (yes i know why i included 50 cents lets be real his music was pretty subpar i don't know why y'all nikkas think he was legendary) i can name a bunch of new school cats that do this gangsta rapping shyt better than all them like gibbs, j.rock, Q, pusha T, and shyt even the old nikkas were and are still better than some of those cats like scarface, NWA, ghostface, raekwon, UGK

-when we let white rappers be the poster boy for an all black genre not pointing fingers at eminem but lets not act like he didn't have a hand, when vanilla ice came on i doubt people took him seriously, and thank god they didn't but once eminem REALLY got put on it was a wrap. notice how if you ask every white kid who the best rapper is the first person to name is em, but with black kid you'll will hear a multitude of names from em, to pac, to hov, to big l, to nas, etc. em gave these white kids a reason to listen to rap if they weren't doing so before which just made the image of it worse because a majority of his content was just straight horrorcore for some time and that was terrible representation of the genre as a whole

-y'all nikkas pointing fingers at kanye like nah son kanye brought LIFE to something that was dying thank him, you know how bland and boring music was at that time he came up, i quit listening to music for sometime because i was tired of listening to this wackass shyt. i say it all the time kanye > 50 no contest

-also crossing of genres, we let pop and rnb cross in. that should have been a no no. inb4 kanye the only non-hiphop album he has is 808s and he even states that it was never supposed to be a hiphop

The first bolded, yeah the mainstream south numbed the game of talent and made any wack dude with a catchy hook and beat blow up. I blame the stagnant ass east coast rap of the mid 00s for making people jump shyt, which leads to my second point. Back in the 00s, the east coast cats felt entitled and released a bunch of subpar albums, thinking that the Puffy-influenced game mixed with street shyt will always have fans. When the likes of the south came up with the 808s and snares, bytches left the thugged out east coast cat because he was "swagless" and "out of touch" and never look back on traditional boom bap beats. Kanye came in the game when the game itself was so caught up on backstories and images of the hood that he, and his fresh production, had no choice but to blow up in that. He proved that if you come in the right time and product, you will blow up something spectacular.

Rap game all messed up because of greed and sub par material from every region. That is why Hip Hop stations are slowly turning to EDM channels.

 

[Bolzmark]

When the first rapper signed a record deal. That's when the culture welcomed in corporate America. Most issues are a result of that. In the beginning it didn't matter much, because corporate America didn't know what they had, But as it expanded, and the money started flowing in, their claws dug deeper.

 

[Hugs]

Beef DVD

Explain

 

[3rdWorld]

nwa

 

[iFightSeagullsForBread]

Explain

Essentially it focused more on the confrontational aspects of the genre, which I personally believe you could say spawn other negative outlets and mediums for the genre, sites like Mediafakeout and World Star Hip Hop for example. In which physical violence, rivalry and even death unfortunately became synonymous with Hip-Hop.

Through I can't front and act like I wasn't entertained by them.

 

[KENNY DA COOKER]

When the first rapper signed a record deal. That's when the culture welcomed in corporate America. Most issues are a result of that. In the beginning it didn't matter much, because corporate America didn't know what they had, But as it expanded, and the money started flowing in, their claws dug deeper.

BINGO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm an OLD HEAD....and I can tell ya.........we been downhill ever since Sugarhill Records was being bankrolled by MCA and Morris Levy the guy who made Suge Knight look like Drake...and the sponsorship of the first National Rap Tour THE FRESH FEST by Sprite/Coca Cola.......

I had to get educated my "GOLDEN ERA" was simply an ERA OF IDEALS.....way it made me feel good and all fuzzy inside to hear all this dope production by Marley Marl...the Bomb Squad...Premier and all those "message filled" lyrics.......

but it was still nothing more than a PRODUCT to CORPORATE AMERICA....



at first Corporate America and Radio took US for granted..oh it's a gimmick

but when MTV came hollering cause RUN DMC and others were putting up numbers and tours....that's when IT WAS A WRAP..

HIP HOP BECAME A CAPITILIST TOOL!





we THOUGHT we were against the status quo...we THOUGHT we were revolutionaries...and we THOUGHT we were artists free of COMMERCIAL TAINTING...



but it was a lie......one nice smoke and mirrors lie , because as the REAL OLD HEADS my mentors from the 70's educated me that THEY WERE THE TRUE SCHOOL cause they did it in the parks with two turntables and a microphone at local parties with no need to have SONG STRUCTURE or AIRPLAY , or look at their RECORD DEAL......

Yea as Pos says.."i'm a rap fan whom NEVER SEEN BAM ROCK AT A PARK"...

and that's WHERE THE REAL HIP HOP WAS......FREE AND UNCONTRIVED WITHOUT PERFORMING TASK FOR A COMPANY

 

[DANJ!]

I agree with what you are saying but only to a degree cuz even old skool fans of rakim and PE that hated where music was headed (in their heart of hearts) had alternatives black thought, roots, canibus, dead prez and thats not mentioning the old cats that were still doing it. In the era we have now no one is around, there isnt an epmd, there isnt a gangstarr, kool keith, lord finesse, mic geronimo, kool g rap, digable planets, dmx, helter skelter, jeru, scarface e.t.c There has been an ethnic cleansing of familiar and talented artist, they've been replace by kids with simplistic repetitive lyric/songs. This isnt a case of just getting old the landscape has completely changed for the worse. Is there even an LL equivalent in todays game? they are all laid back and soft.

We already have sissfied rappers, others pushing the gay narrative like young thug/macklemore. The message is all but lost and the production levels arent that great.Most of the top sellers arent even black and the ones that are are c00ns. How exactly can the game get worse than this in 20 years?

See that's the thing... YES, you DO have alternatives. There are still rappers out there who don't sound like Young Thug or whoever the fukk. Now whether they're popular or whatever is another thing, but if it's just about music, why give a shyt how many other people like 'em? Sure, it's not like it was back in the day... I can surely agree with that. But neither is anything, what can ya do. It was never gonna be. But hip-hop's "downfall" is forever gonna be subjective. There's always gonna be a bunch of people who think there's some specific point in time where their beloved hip-hop was destroyed, and really there is no one point in time. It's all a gradual progression, really. In every era, there was something wack that nikkas were OK with, which eventually gave way to something wacker to come along a couple years later and nikkas were OK with that too, and so on and so on.

 

[Roman Brady]

See that's the thing... YES, you DO have alternatives. There are still rappers out there who don't sound like Young Thug or whoever the fukk. Now whether they're popular or whatever is another thing, but if it's just about music, why give a shyt how many other people like 'em? Sure, it's not like it was back in the day... I can surely agree with that. But neither is anything, what can ya do. It was never gonna be. But hip-hop's "downfall" is forever gonna be subjective. There's always gonna be a bunch of people who think there's some specific point in time where their beloved hip-hop was destroyed, and really there is no one point in time. It's all a gradual progression, really. In every era, there was something wack that nikkas were OK with, which eventually gave way to something wacker to come along a couple years later and nikkas were OK with that too, and so on and so on.

Whats ok today though, I aint even going to say dope what is ok today? they say kendrick lamar is the closet thing to the artist of yesterday but hes trash who isnt popular now that is close to bus in his prime, who isnt popular that bringing it like mr smith in mama said knock you out, who isnt getting play that sounds like prodigy, havoc or pre pop dmx? which underground dude in his basement sounds like rakim. Which group not on mainstream radio sounds like tribe or wu?

 

[tremonthustler1]

It's like this..
If the NBA started letting players in who couldn't play or were trash the league would suffer.

They do. We see em every year. Let the Coli tell it they'll say it's the best league in the world

 

[DANJ!]

Whats ok today though, I aint even going to say dope what is ok today? they say kendrick lamar is the closet thing to the artist of yesterday but hes trash who isnt popular now that is close to bus in his prime, who isnt popular that bringing it like mr smith in mama said knock you out, who isnt getting play that sounds like prodigy, havoc or pre pop dmx? which underground dude in his basement sounds like rakim. Which group not on mainstream radio sounds like tribe or wu?

They're not supposed to.

Those acts you named didn't become great by soundin' like a muhfukka that came before them.

 

[Self_Born7]

when it became corporate.

 

[Roman Brady]

They're not supposed to.

Those acts you named didn't become great by soundin' like a muhfukka that came before them.

Weak, different time and different rules in those days there was more showmanship, being current while saying something was key. To sound like someone that already come and gone was like giving your career a limited window.Today you can sound like 10 other cats and you dont need to have a rag to riches backkstory or street cred to get co-signed but thats beside the point. The point is who isnt getting air play that is bringing something fresh to the trash thats running things? no one which is why your argument about 20 years they'll be saying 2014 was much better than 2034 is flawed..Rap is basically like pop is you hear a club banger thats catchy and gets heavy rotation then when something hotter comes on that track is spat out.Its already disposable bubblegum music how exactly can it get any worse. Can an already fully decomposed corpse rot some more?

 

[aboss4real24]

White jew mfs running companies