HIP-HOP'S DEATH KNELL? HOLD UP.
I turned to yesterday's LA Times and saw this piece: "In major awards, rap gets no love," which noted that, for the first time in six years, the Grammy Awards did not include any rap artists amongst its main categories for best albums or artist. Authors Geoff Boucher and Chris Lee opine:
- "The Grammy snub caps a fairly miserable year for the rap scene. A look at the best-selling CDs of 2006 shows that only one rap album, T.I.'s "King," cracked the Top 20."
"There's been hand-wringing about whether all of that adds up to a music scene running low on fresh ideas or limping through a few sluggish seasons. Recording studio guru Rick Rubin, one of the most acclaimed names in contemporary music and a nominee Thursday for producer of the year, has helped shape rap since its early days. He said cycles of decline and rejuvenation are nothing new. A case in point: the arrival in the '80s of the incendiary L.A. rap group N.W.A. "Hip-hop was dead for me for a while and then N.W.A came along and knocked down the doors and completely changed what it could be and how far it could go," he said."
"[Ansel] Samuel, the editor at XXL magazine, said one reason may be that today's emphasis on quick-hit singles results in artistic standards that hang low. It's been the year of "silly stuff and disposable music," he said."
A few thoughts:
*Did I miss the point when people - especially those invested in hip-hop's status - actually gave a f--- about a Grammy? I cannot imagine a major cultural awards show that's more out of touch with contemporary trends, especially when it relates to hip-hop, as the Grammys. This is always been the case; the few cases where the Grammys actually "get it right," such as Lauryn Hill's award in 1999, seem like incredible flukes rather than any indication that the nominations committee has a remote sense of what's important in hip-hop. The snubbing of rap albums from this year's awards do, however, seem to reflect the other point the article was making: sales are down and that makes a difference in terms of what gets onto the Grammys radar.
*I think it is newsworthy to note how badly rap sales have fallen off in 2006. I do not, however, think this is indicative of any major trend simply because it's too early to make that call. As the article notes, a lot of big releases (Jay, Snoop, Game, Jeezy) were all pushed to the very end of the year. It is equally true too that there have been some real flops this year too: Cam'ron took a big L with Killa Season, Ghostface will likely go down as underselling not one but two CDs in the same year (much as I personally liked Fishscale and even More Fish), Rick Ross did decent numbers but didn't *ahem* hustle up that hard otherwise, and Outkast's Idlewild was overshadowed by the movie and both posted up middling numbers regardless. T.I.'s King now seems both parts prophetic and aspirational.
*Samuels' argument that this year held "silly stuff and disposable music" was either edited out of context or just a bad soundbite. That same criticism has been leveled at hip-hop since 1979, usually by people who are utterly disconnected from the music, and to hear rap editors repeating the same sentiment is unfortunate. It mostly just sounds like a slap at Southern rap (read b/t the lines) as well as "Chicken Noodle Soup," and sure - there were some silly fads this year but there are every year. "Disposable music" hardly does justice to explaining what's actually happening...assuming there is something happening besides an "off" year.
*The Rick Rubin quotes cracked me up since I'm trying to figure out how it is that Rubin thought hip-hop was dead when the two years leading up to N.W.A. produced everything from Run DMC's Raising Hell to Eric B and Rakim's Paid In Full to Boogie Down Productions' Criminal Minded.
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