esrosedotblog

RAPPED OUT

Rap music is an oxymoron.

There is nothing musical about it.

Loud and profane, soaked in violent and hate filled images with no redeeming social or artistic value, the rap phenom took over the music business in a particularly sad way.

For black kids and young adults, it perpetuates the ghetto.

A whole generation of pimpled white boys in backward baseball caps have lost their ability to hear or appreciate a tune.

And so on.

You don't want to know any more about what I think of this awful pop-culture genré, this blot on society.

But, there is good news in the NYTimes today.

"Sales are down all over, but hip-hop has been hit particularly hard. Rap sales slid fell 21 percent from 2005 to 2006, and that trend seems to be continuing. It’s the inevitable aftermath, perhaps, of the genre’s vertiginous rise in the 1990s, during which a series of breakout stars — Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. — figured out that they could sell millions without shaving off their rough edges. By 1997 the ubiquity of Puff Daddy helped cement hip-hop’s new image: the rapper as tycoon. Like all pop-music trends, like all economic booms, this one couldn’t last."

They also started killing each other off.

The chickens are coming home to roost.

Labels: culture