Has Hip-Hop Died over a Dope Beat?

No matter what age you were when you first discovered your first Hip Hop song, you will always remember the beat and every verse to it.

I grew up in the 90s era which I consider to be the era of "Real Music & Real Hip Hop".

It was not difficult to distinguish between an R&B artist and an all out hard core Rapper.


I believe we all wanted to be able to "Bee-Bop"(create tunes with your mouth) and show our friends that we could free-style, which is to produce harmonic words of rhythm simply off the top of your head with no paper. If you remember like I did, then you were even racing home on Fridays to tune into "Free Style Friday on 106 & Park back when Free & AJ were the hosts just to see who would lyrically murder their opponent or to see who would jump in the booth with Big Tigger!

However over the years it seems that Hip Hop music has become more about a tight beat rather than about the actual skill of word usage. The music does not tell much of a story anymore. Many of the artist sound exactly the same and originality has vanished. 

There was a time that you could flip on the radio and tell exactly who was rapping whereas now if you turn on the radio, you need to google the song to identify who the artist is.

What happened to originality? Why do they all sound the same?

Those of us who grew up during the 80s & 90s era are sadly losing interest for some of today's rap music.

We would rather turn on apps such as "Pandora" or "Spotify" to locate the music that we grew up on and could relate to. I can honestly say that some of the music that is being played repetitively on the radio stations is straight garbage and many of those artists will only be one hit wonders and their music will be forgotten just as soon as another artist speaking gibberish hits the light with another fly beat.

Rap Artists from the 80s & 90s created legendary music that you will never forget and it will continue to be in rotation on every radio forever. Does anyone want to create legendary music anymore or would they rather just shine for the moment?!

Every artist no matter who they were, was an artist that took pride in their work and on being original by saying something that nobody else had heard displayed in that manner. They could all be rapping in some form about the same thing but the way they said it made you want to race out to buy that new "Tape', or "CD".  We even had that composition that was full of every lyric to each of our favorite rap artist's song!

Nobody even does that anymore. It seems the love for Hip Hop has died all over a tight beat.

You will see many people bobbing their head back and forth but can't tell you much of anything the artist is saying in the song.

Will the real Rap Artist's of today please stand up or at least guide the ones who actually want to perform the art. If not, then we will have a race of babies who know nothing about real music or real Hip Hop. 

Hip Hop to me is so much more than a dope beat. I feel like if you just don't have anything decent to say in your rap lyrics then simply just create an album full of beats with no words.

Very few lyrically skilled  rappers can be heard over the radio station today. Yet you can hear a ton of nonsense played constantly in rotation. 

Is it even Hip Hop anymore? You tell me where it all went wrong. 

What does the future truly hold for the love and passion of creating real Hip Hop music?!