What Happened To Hip Hop?

Growing up with an older brother who constantly listened to hip hop, I was exposed to many MCs at a young age. When I was young, hip hop to me consisted of Big L, Hieroglyphics, A Tribe Called Quest and many other MCs and groups that I considered to be very talented at doing what they did. As I grew up, hip hop, just like every other musical genre “progressed” you could say, and rappers such as P Diddy and 50 Cent started to emerge. To the general public, these “MCs” were a huge hit, but to me, they were nothing but a dissapointment.

Rap back when I was young was filled with struggling MCs telling the stories of their lives, the hard shit they dealt with growing up and the constant struggle in life with money, family, and women. You turn on the radio or MTV now and all you hear are rappers talking about sex, money, and killing people. You rarely ever hear an MC on MTV that can actually spit, instead you hear rappers using there kindergarden rhymes to gain the respect of millions of brainwashed fans.

It’s like Immortal Technique said “If you go platinum, it’s got nothing to do with luck. It just means that a million people are stupid as fu*k.” I remember hearing verses from rappers that actually had meaning behind them, that actually made you think, verses such as this:

“You see, my aura’s positive I don’t promote no junk
See, I’m far from a bully and I ain’t a punk
Extremity in rhythm, yeah that’s what you heard
So just clean out your ears and just check the word”
– ATCQ

Compare a verse like that with one of 50 Cent’s, and the difference in talent is laid out right in front of you. Here’s a verse from 50 Cent for example:

“I ain’t that nigga trying to holla cause I want some head
I’m that nigga trying to holla cause I want some bread
I could care less how she perform when she in the bed
– 50 Cent

I don’t know about anyone else but to me modern day hip hop is garbage. I’m not saying that underground hip hop isn’t in existence or going strong, because believe me I’m a huge fan of the modern day underground MC’s like Jedi Mind, Blackalicious, Gangstarr, Canibus and many more, all I’m saying is why aren’t these MC’s mainstream, why isn’t their talent being exposed? Why does Lil Jon continue to make money yelling Yea and OK in his songs? You tell me.