Rappers: Last of a Dying Breed

In the day of SoundScan and the Billboard charts, the hip-hop movement is undergoing a bit of a mid-life crisis. The radio is largely dominated by acts that incessantly chant hooks and regional anthems with regularity and with boldness. There is the chart blockbuster 50 Cent himself who seems to be on top of pop music altogether at some point every year with new hits; Ludacris can be seen frequently with his chops wide open communicating with boisterous rhymes, and there seems to be at least six new rap groups that hit it big with a mainstream single of the so-called Dirty South, but what and where is the content? What is the legacy for the new-age rapper?

There are changes in the making that reforming ideas of what exactly a rapper is in the American music landscape. Without having to delve heavily into the golden age period of rap, many Eighties pioneers left their legacies with rhyme styles and stage presence. The Nineties allowed for the rapper to evolve and move in more varied forms of communication by way of genre fusion and self-created vernaculars, with examples such as A Tribe Called Quest, Wu-Tang Clan, and Redman. But rap past the year 2000-has the legacy of this era gone the way of the almighty dollar instead of creativity? Formulaic success over spontaneous risk? The platinum chain over the artist's respect of the microphone?

Even with active legends such as Nas and Jay-Z, who have at times vacillated between artistic integrity and passing popular trends, their legacies have been cemented in their overall bodies of work and have maintained a consistent pattern of musical excellence in their craft by finding new ways to convey the status quo, making listeners submit to their will with a distinct command of the English language, and being able to adapt to the industry's moneymaker landscape.

What will 50 Cent's legacy be? He made a lot of money? Better yet, what does he give that leaves a distinguishable mark on hip-hop, beyond being an instigator and being the virtual opposite of conflict resolution? Maybe hip-hop is moving in a down period; the industry is definitely suffering in rap's decline of album sales. Maybe the want for more in rap is due to the trend of album preludes found in pre-release EPs/mixtapes; perhaps the emergence of producer-driven singles have outperformed the presence of the actual artist; and just maybe record labels are no longer grooming careers, but quick bucks instead.

Whatever the reason, the millennium era of hip-hop will have to testify to time's trials in years to come. Hip-hop isn't dead, like Nas has repeatedly made known. No, but if anything, hip-hop/rap as we know it is nursing a terrible cold.

Maybe it just needs a little chicken noodle soup, with a soda on the side.