Whats is your opinion on the way Hip-Hop has changed over these last 20 years? Better or Worse?

WAYYYYYYYYY worse. lyrically, mostly. its all about drugs, money and sex now. It used to be about drugs, money, sex and shooting people. Now all hip-hop ‘artists’ are just posers.

also i like silverstein too! yay. im a metalhead mostly, though :) \m/

Well, that’s mainstream Hip Hop. I’m sure some of the lesser known stuff still speaks of poverty and racism.

MUCH MUCH worse!!
“Rap/Hip-hop” nowadays all portray women in a derogatory way. Some of which may come off misogynistic.
Rap used to be about getting through a hard life, or slavery, now, we hear ridiculous lyrics and songs about how they like to spend x amount of dollars on shoes with diamonds.

I’m not a biased person either, I literally listen to every genre out there. I just lost respect for hip hop because of present “artists” that killed it.

@Symbeline I agree completely, the underground musicians do speak about poverty and racism which is a nice breath of fresh air.

i hate hip hop with a burning passion of a thousand flaming tigers dancing the dance of fire at the core of the sun.

@helloeveryone I can’t top that one…:) Me too

I say let them eat cake if thats what they really want to eat. We can’t stop it, and we don’t have to listen to it, and there’s lots of other great music out there to listen to, to have and to hear for everybody forever. Hip hop is not preventing great musicians from making great music. And occasionally someone breaks the mold and makes something inventive, and in those cases Im interested to hear it. If it’s a distinguishable human voice, playing from the heart, and I can recognize it, and it’s got a dope beat, then Im all ears.

And I think what drove hip hop originally was what made it originally great. It came at a time when music wasn’t being taught in school as much, which is what made Jazz possible for the black community. This time around, they had nothing, and they still did something with it. They inherited a culture, with records, and record players, and nothing of their own, so they made something of their own. Till that time the black male had nothing to call his own to look up to in culture, which is what our society fetishises. That motivation isnt there now. The music, its culture, and its people has by and large been defined, and been absorbed into the rest of the beast. Nowadays, now that every voice of every people, and color, and genre, has been heard, its about mixing things together in ways they’ve never been before. and thats for anybody.

Yeah my grandma had a hip op last week she’s doing fine.

I have to agree with you. Hip-hop was at its peak around the time of Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet. When artists had an agenda, other than to rape the wallets & culture of blacks & teens worldwide. The current crop are a dirge!

A turd is a turd! A turd can’t get better or any worse…it’s a turd!

I found an interesting timeline on Hip-Hop.

I wasn’t around for hip hop in the 80s and 90s, but today that hiphop is actually a bit enjoyable while modern stuff I can’t stand. I’m not much a fan period, but something has changes for the worse. (probably fame).

Hip Hip is the Leggos of music.

It is far worse.

It is worse! The artists that have something to say are all buried by tons of bling, bitches and bullshit. The only people that really get to experience the remaining shreds of good hip-hop are forced to dig through underground music stores never truly sure that the album they just purchased holds the remaining shreds of their favorite MCs artform or if it is just another victim of the modern music industry printed on a plastic disk.

I agree with most of these people. Hip Hop has just turned into songs about sex, drugs, and strippers. We need more songs like “Where is the Love?” and less songs like “Birthday Sex.” (I mean, come on!)

I haven’t really heard much of a difference other than 2 things:

1. More drugs/sex/alcohol/hate/cursing
2. Autotune

And, I never liked re-mixing. That is cheating.