(Aug 2, 2022 ● Oslin Pierrette)
Can the Hip-Hop genre die? Recently I was researching what led to the demise of Rock & Roll. Especially since the genre was once the powerhouse of music. It was culturally the biggest thing in the world. So what happened to it? Did people just not like it as much anymore, were bands not as good anymore. How did Rock not only lose its position as the number 1 genre, but crumble as a culture.
The main points I was seeing from Rock lovers. The disintegrating of that Rock fundamental essence. They feel like the Death of Blues was the beginning of the end of Rock & Roll. Which was one of Rock’s main fundamental elements. Most thriving Rock bands had some sort of Blue’s influence in their music. What is the essence of The Blue’s? Basically I feel these things. I have some things to say. I’m going to deeply express this. Even if I know or not how to play this music, a great singer or not. I’m going to express what I got. Basically a human element. That’s what started to void in Rock music. You could look at the commercialization of Rock music. It’s around the same time a boom of technology happened. With music software like pro tools, and the internet taking over. Then you have corporations taking over and monopolizing the media. Label execs wanting to invest in safe Rock records that will do the best numbers. Instead of appealing to a smaller core audience, but making very dense music for their fans. They’re pushing for more records with mass appeal. Music with a blanket that covers a lot of the masses, but that results typically with a very thin blanket. That probably led to the homogenization of sound in Rock culture. You create this safe polished product. With a void of human essence. You’re taking the soul away from the art. Which means no Blues. Polished Blues is a contradiction, an oxymoron. With commercialization, you typically leave the genuine core audience that built the genre. That held it up. Then go to cater to the masses. Taking away more from the essence of Rock. After a while it probably becomes fluff and crumbles.
These same elements that destroyed Rock & Roll. Look like the same actions taking place currently in Hip-Hop. That raw element that made Rock so good, that they lost around the mid 90s. Hip-Hop was at one of its greatest peaks in the 90s. Birthing so many new raw rappers. That were doing it for the essence of the raps and music. A lot of the world started to look at what’s going on in Hip-Hop. Becoming the cultural powerhouse. Making some of the best music to go along with it. Dressing like your favorite rapper or rap crew. Talking like them, trying to live like them. They were the pinnacle culture of the world. Rappers were the coolest. People were consumed by the lifestyle, like when mafia movies were so cool. It mimicked that essence. Being the baddest Mother F***er. Which didn’t just consume the black community, but the masses. More importantly white kids. Why that’s important, after execs and music labels noticed that white kids bought into the Hip-Hop movement that they probably denied at first. They were like, Woah, what’s going on over here with “These People”. They saw the commodity of Hip-Hop and decided to invest in it. Luckily for the culture. In the beginning. Lot of Hip-Hop’s purists got to control the music making. Like Dr. Dre, Diddy and Bad Boyz, Roc-a-Fella Jay Dame and Kanye, Timbaland, Pharrell, Irv Gotti, etc. Lot of Hip-Hop’s tastemakers got to keep their integrity. That created some of the greatest Hip-Hop eras.
You also had a boom with advertisements with someone like Steve Stoute. Who was big in the movement of the integration of Hip-Hop and advertisement. So many people bought into Hip-Hop culture and the characters of it. They wanted to dress like them, and be like them. So of course it was a great idea to sell the style. Helping Jay-Z drop the S Carter’s that sold out in hours. Then you would have things like Wayne and Pharrell making things like BAPE and other streetwear brands popping. Kanye with the pink polo and backpacks. Street rappers with 3-4XL clothing and sport jerseys. Nelly’s air force one’s song. You could also go back to the 80s with the shell toes and adidas jumpsuit. All the 90s styles. Hip-Hop’s influence was deeply ingrained into pop culture. People believe in all these Hip-Hop acts. This is what a flourishing culture looks like.
One of the first hits to Hip-Hop. You can say the G-unit & 50 Cent Vs. NY. Also the NY Radio stations Vs. NY local rappers. Long story short. Stunting the rap scene in NY which didn’t immediately end it, but did hinder traditional rap. Then Hip-Hop focusing on the Southern scene. Especially with Kanye West post Graduation era. Which scared NY biased Hip-Hop lovers, who thought Hip-Hop was coming to an end. Which it wasn’t, the quality of Hip-Hop was still in a good state though.
The true beginning of the end of Hip-Hop I would say is 2017/18. 2015/16 was a golden era of music. Mostly because of the streaming era. Which can also be seen as the algorithm/data era. The anticipation of 2017 is sky high, and thinking you’re going to see the greatest music ever, based on what you saw the year prior. Then you were left underwhelmed. The music was good, but it took time after you dropped the anticipation. Year by year, the quality kept dropping though. What I started to realize. The tastemakers weren’t deciding or pushing the music anymore. The algorithm, data, and computers were deciding the music. Literally taking the human element out of music. Seeing what’s hot, then mimicking whatever that is. Where before you saw who sold the most. Now you can see how long people were listening, and which sections. What songs they were going to first. Song lengths that get the most streams. Album track lengths that do the best. Everything becomes imitated and formulaic. Reason why you saw like 50 Young Thug, Future, and Lil Uzi exact copy clones. What sound and producers people are attracted to. Also seeing bloated albums with a lot of filler songs. Songs rarely go over 4 mins. All these tactics to boost the monetary value, even at the cost of music quality. The homogenization of music was only getting stronger. The algorithm was taking over. The playlist. Trying to make music like the music that makes it on the playlist. Rid of a lot of the human elements in Hip-Hop. Absent of rawness, of human experimentation. Hip-Hop is in a very safe music making space, very formulaic. Hip-Hop and safe is an oxymoron. I think people are waiting for the next phase in Hip-Hop. Not knowing it’s not evolving. They’re confusing that with ‘out with the old’. When really the genre as a whole is on the brink of death.
I like to use Whole Lotta Red a lot as an example, because it’s the antithesis of everything causing this current decline on Hip-Hip. It was a great lasting product. It was successful. Then shortly after a whole culture of clones. Doing the absolute minimum, very surfaceable and lazy. Doing literally the exact same thing. Down to the vocal inflections. Just drowning out the Carti sound that he artistically created. Homogenizing and saturating the sound and look. That’s a lot of the problem right there basically. There’s cancer in Hip-Hop. I don’t think people understand that a genre can die. Hip-Hop may be in like a stage 4 cancer zone.
That cancer definitely derives from the exec positions. Them not caring what happens or how people experience the culture. Just worried about getting the numbers. Following whatever the lifeless data tells them to do. Monotonous algorithm death cycle. Where corporations are pushing things on the masses. Where now you’re like collecting data from a soulless entity. Apathetic data collecting. It manifests into those companies pushing out apathetic monotonous “art”. The “artists” that aren’t really artists, don’t even seem like they like music. Don’t have much of a care or respect for it. Earlier Hip-Hop you had to know your stuff to thrive. Had to have some sort of individuality. Had to have a visible skillset. Where these artists get their hit. Then go straight to milking money on brand deals. The thing about that. Where back in the day. Pharrell and Wayne had a whole generation wearing BAPE. People don’t believe in these “artists”. They don’t influence anything. They don’t move any needles of the culture. Like they collect data from the music to know what to mimic, in attempt to replicate the success. They also collect the data from “artists” media platforms. So they can imitate the image and personality, in attempt to replicate the success of a profiting “artist”. It’s an apathetic genre with very few exceptions to the rule. That feeling that made Hip-Hop so grand. That feeling that moved the culture. That fundamental aspect of Hip-Hop is absent.
I just would like to see more state of emergency warnings in Hip-Hop addressing the possible death of it. With how parallel the demise of Rock & Roll is to Hip-Hop’s current decline. We need more attempts at greatness. Forget the business of Hip-Hop for a while. Worry about reviving the lifeline of Hip-Hop.
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