Word: hops
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...listen and learn. I'm one to side with my boy, and not just for parrochial reasons--I enjoy certain people's company (like Golden Age Man) precisely because they say some outlandish and thus inspiring stuff. But bottom line, I think I've sensed somber days for hip hop much more often than glorious ones: pretty much every time I leaf through rap magazines, or when I think about the fact that the dopest tracks that have dropped in the past couple years will probably never go beyond vinyl singles played on college radio shows like Harvard...
However, I wouldn't go so far as to say that hip hop is sure to die. At least not anytime soon. They might be few, but there are moments when hip hop actually pays...
...stuff you've written in a small setting with people that are there to do the same, or to simply enjoy those of us who like to talk over beats (or what's better, to look for new acts). It might be at open mics where I feel hip hop to be the most alive: ciphers spring up everywhere with the occasional random battle, aided by the DJ spinning the illest new records between ameteur sets...
Sadly, however, the venue in which most of the world's hip hop listeners live the music is at the shows where signed artists come to a town near you to perform their album material. Put simply, next to the cozier, more covert settings of what we can loosely term the "underground," such shows are just weak-wack. Typical rap artists either stand on stage with nothing entertaining to deliver except the mere presence of their stardom (e.g., Jay-Z), or they riddle their acts with gimmicky stage props or too many cohorts (e.g., Nas, Wu-Tang). Or they repeat...
...spite of my growing distaste for the more obviously commercial side of hip hop performance, I couldn't pass on the opportunity of seeing the almighty Kris Parker make his Knowledge Reign Supreme in club Liquid in Boston last Friday night, particularly because Biz Markie was supposed to be there as well. Plus I got in for free...