RE: Prospect Article

Another point on Aaron's post below.

"The most interesting part of the article argues that the essential form of hiphop/rap--that of a music that shocks and challenges is dying because of the mainstream acceptance."

Hmmm...where have I heard that before? Ah yes, I believe that argument has been made, let's see, CONSTANTLY for the last 30 years or so RE:Rock'n'Roll. Now there may be some pretentious assholes out there who would argue, "Rock is dead," but...well, check your CD collection/record sales/the CD collections of everyone you know.

Any argument like this, about hip-hop especially, comes down to simple racism. Black people make hip-hop, it's not original, they can't do anything more with it, etc.

Listen assholes, a little exercise:
put on "Rock Around the Clock"
then "Abbey Road"
then "Pablo Honey"
then "Kid A"
[pause]
then "Rapper's Delight"
then "Fear of a Black Planet"
then "Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik"
then "Speakerboxx/The Love Below"

Okay? Get my damn point? Good.
But in case you didn't...
Rock has come a long way in the 48 years since "Rock Around the Clock." And for a lot of that time, people have been saying that it really couldn't go anywhere new. That is clearly and provably untrue.
Hip-hop has come a long way in the 25 years since "Rapper's Delight." And it clearly has a long way further to go.
By way of further analogy - a lot of great rock records have been made since 1981.

One last point:
It's also pretty interesting how each of the first rock and rap songs to hit #1 was lyrically devoted, primarily, to talking about rocking/rapping. Clearly, there's still a lot of that on both sides, but...well, both have also come a long way. Is all.