Originally Posted by
Hagbard Celine
I don't know whether I agree or disagree. I think that it's evolving. It's still a very new artform so I think that when it changes, it changes as a whole so what you might view as a "dropping in popularity" is actually a genre-wide shift towards something else. In the last few years I've noticed a lot of rap songs that have rap on top of an older song by an "old school" artist like Phil Collins or someone like that. There have also been a lot of tracks made that feature a rapper and another artist from a different genre such as country, classical, etc. I think with so much of that, the genre has shifted as a whole and now we're hearing a lot more "songs" rather than just tracks that sound like rap beats. That stuff is still being made, but what's popular has shifted in the other direction.
One good thing is that a lot of the old school "gansta" rap is losing popularity to artists like P-Diddy, JayZ, Andre Benjamin, Ludacris, R. Kelly and those type guys who are taking the emphasis of their music away from the message of violence that a lot of rap used to promote.
That's what I've noticed too. Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson songs with rap over it. It's heading in the right direction, imo.
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