Speaking of Hip Hop

Brother Minister Faust has an ontime post on the demise of Hip Hop.

the super rich elites who control the production, distribution and radio/video play of pop music in North America, the same people who bought out the small labels when political hip hop was in its ascendancy, the same people who replaced conscious hip hop and its aesthetics with gangsta and then playa rap.

He links out to a post by Nekesa Mumbi Moody who shows among other things:

Though music sales are down overall, rap sales slid a whopping 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and for the first time in 12 years, no rap album was among the top 10 sellers of the year.

I am not surprised. Last weekend I happened to leave my place sans-iPod which is a rare occurrence. I use the iPod simply because the radio does nothing for me. As if to provide more proof of radio's irrelevance to my ears, I happened to put on Hot 97 here in the Big A. That was a mistake. See I was headed to the gym and wanted something upbeat. well after the third "artists" came on that had the same beat, same style, and absolutely nothing of value to say, I turned around and headed back to my place to retrieve my iPod. I mean, I'm not a tight ass. I understand that there is a "need" for mindless party music, but they lyrics were so wack, so empty and so damn repetitive (bling, hoes, whips, chains, rims, Crys, Holla, and walkin' it out) that it was truly annoying. I couldn't even tune the words out as I had been able to because it was just THAT annoying.

Now I understand exactly why The Strange Fruit Project is the last Hip Hop I purchased.