If You Asking Why Is Hip Hop Dead There’s a Pretty Good Chance You’re the Reason it Died

For old school hip hop fans we don’t need Nas to tell us that Hip Hop Is Dead as we have know for some time now that it was. For proof look no further than the recent Grammy nominations where there were no rappers represented in the big four categories (Album, Song, Record, New Artist). The big question is who killed it: Was it Eminem who made it socially acceptable for thirteen year old suburban white chicks to listen to the genre? Or Nelly who took a step further and recorded a song with the very un-hip *NSYNC (and later with Tim McGraw)? Maybe it was Nas himself who sampled In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida not once but twice recently here on the title track of Hip Hop Is Dead.

But throughout the album Nas doesn’t call out names of who is responsible, even on the track Who Killed It?, instead he throws a blanket of blame over the commercialization of the genre and even hints at his motivation during the title track when he raps, “Nas rap is compared to legitimized crap.” The rest of the album plays out like a eulogy even giving love to those who never got the commercial success, most notably on the James Brown sampling Where Are They Now?, unlike their excessive bling wearing modern day counterparts. This is even though they laid the foundation that enabled the current stars to gain an embarrassment of riches that they are more than happy to show off on Cribs.

On Got Ur Self a... off of Stillmatic, Nas started one verse by say “My first album had no famous guest appearances, the outcome, I’m crowned the best lyricist” which was more than you regular boisterous rapper claim as there was plenty of truth in that statement. In early stages of this album, Nas suggested that his next would be without any guest and would be solely produced by D.J. Premier of Gang Starr but Hip Hop Is Dead ended up with a few guest appearances along with plenty of big name producers. Premier is conspicuously absent which makes me wonder if that album was just put on the back burner.

What hurts Nas the most is when he when he brings in those guest because rarely do they usually pale in comparison to one of the best lyricist. This most evident with The Game on QB True G who spend most of his verse blowing smoke at Nas and Dr. Dre who produced the track. This is also evident on Play on Playa with Snoop Dogg, but the track itself is not up to par thanks to the blandest producer in recent memory, Scott Storch. Ironically Nas opens up the song by ripping on the Hilton sisters when it is Storch who we can thank for Paris’s train wreck of an album. Another producer who couldn’t provide Nas a decent beat was Chris Weber for Blunt Ashes. And yes, it’s that Chris Webber.

But after a few boring guest spots and a mediocre comeback album, Nas’s onetime nemesis and current boss at Def Jam, Jay-Z seems revitalized on Black Republican a song that samples Marcia Religiosa from Godfather III, by far his best effort since coming out of retirement. Kanye West produces and gives a verse on Still Dreaming though doesn’t live up to their collaboration on We Major form West’s latest album. West does a much better job with the other song he produces on the disk Let There Be Light but it is the unknown Tre Williams that steals the song with his soulful hook.

And even though I ripped on it in the intro, the will.i.am produced title track is a stand out track that uses more than the Iron Butterfly sample including the go to sample for old school cats, Apache by the Incredible Bongo Band as well show stopping ending with Nas rapping over a crowd shouting “Hip Hop.” But no high priced producer was need for the closer Hope where Nas goes acappella for most of the track. Although like with every Nas album not named Illmatic, this one is uneven at times, but as long as there are rappers like Nas and his ilk, there is still hope for a hip hop resurrection.

Song to Download - Let There Be Light

Hip Hop Is Dead gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.