Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangsta

Disclaimer: In all honesty, I haven't fully thought this post through and there may be myriad holes in my thesis...however - assuming you don't think about it too hard - it's a brilliant argument!

After minimal deliberation, inspired by the love that Generation Laffy-Taffy have been showing to "Hood Rock", I've realised that Hip-hop has reached a similar stage in it's evolution to rock music in the '80s. Words like commercial, formulaic, corporate, catchy and mainstream radio-friendly spring to mind in both cases. There's a lot of fun, gimmickymusic, but it's largely lacking in creativity and authenticity:



and it's kinda lacking in a message that gets you in the heart and the head as well as the hips:



Comparisons in the genres are easy to find, from the legends trying to stay relevant..



..but showing their age:



To the death of an icon..


..signalling the end-or beginning-of an era.



Some peeps still drop dope albums...


...and boy do they know it...



...but still, the music's not what it was and, having considered the scraping-the-barrel stage of it's development, in my next post I'll consider whether rock gives any clues as to how hip-hop might rebound. I mean it can't get much worse...right?

"All the good music has already been written by people with wigs and stuff."-
Frank Zappa