CRITIQUE

Hip-Hop is Dead
The Official Obituary

'My man gave his mommy coke/ so she don't hit the streets all crazy for a smoke/ damn nigga/ could you picture/ you supplying your own mom/ so she don't have to bone for dime' - Rest of My Life (Street Disciple)

That was Nas before he told us to 'Google Earth Nas I got flats in other continents'. Yeah, while it should be one of the trickiest assignments to give free dust to your parent so she dodges an HIV infected dick, it should equally be noted that Nas was misleading the hip-hop heads when he claimed on Jigga's song Success from the American Gangster album that he's got worldwide cribs.

The point behind this post; what has happened to the conscious rapper as we knew it? Today Swizzbeat's # one rapper The Sundance Kid Cassidy freestyles about being 'in the presidential getting lewinsky' and then goes on to brag that 'that's why my verse is retarded'.

I'm old school. I come from the era of Tupac and Biggie and I'm used to RAP (rythm and poetry). That's even when you had naughty lines like 'how does it feel deep in the placenta/ cold as the pole in the winter' it still felt intelligent. Now, the 14-year old Nas who wanted to kidnap the president's wife on Illmatic is no more.

Losing Nas, who on any DJ Prem or Pete Rock beat would be so conscious you'll feel he was telling the truth when he declared that 'on the cross with Jesus Christ was a thug nigga', is like losing Tupac and Biggie once again.

Now, these days we've got 50Cent and Jiggaman to torture us (sorry AfroSliq). Jigga always chopping Biggie everytime he opens his 'fat lips'. The latest being what R.Kelly chopped about 'the number after the dot on the Range'. Jigga then perfects the plagiary and says, 'the only thing changed is tail number on the flight'. Truly, while bemoaning the death of rap I didn't want to entertain serial murderers 50Cent and Dr Dre.

I'll give The Game (The Documentary) some points for attempting to sound authentic. But with the demise of Snoop Doggy Dogg (Pound), Def Squad, Ja Rule, DMX, LL Cool J, Coolio, MC Lyte, Queen Latifah, Yo-Yo, EPMD, Heavy D, Thug Life, Junior Mafia, Mobb Deep, Master P, Da Brat, Kriss Kross, Flipmode Squad, Outlawz, Terror Squad, Wu Tang Clan, Queen Pen etc we can now buy a tombstone and start jotting obituaries to such a beautiful artform, especially with jokers like TI and Lil Wayne heavy in thegame and Nas, the last Messiah having gone pop.