Is Hip Hop really dead?

I don't really listen to hip hop, but I feel like music overall is not as great as it used to be. I think some of the greatest music has been created in the past with special meaning. Not that there isn't any music today but nowadays, music can easily be created with the computer... in the past people had to create music manually with practice through the instrument... it's become very 'manufactured', in my opinion.

Most of hip hop has turned pure pop. Even for a guy like Lil Wayne, who's very hot today, his style was completely different in the late 90s and early 2000s when he came up with Cash Money and was using Juvenile as his launching pad. He had a much more distinctive "hip hop" style that was blended with that new twist on southern rap those guys brought to the table. I came up with A Tribe Called Quest, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, The Wu Tang Clan, Jeru the Damaja, Redman, The Fugees, and other acts that had really evolved from some of the guys you mentioned like Ice T and certainly the Sugar Hill Gang. But that music was still very creative and groundbreaking. These days, guys are sampling songs that have already sampled a sample and remixed it twice. Dropping a meaningful poetic lyric set to a beat has given way to "yo, girl, put dat azz on the floor, yo!" There are still some great acts, but it's becoming far too commercial. Today's pop hop is just like pop rock. When's the last time a really gritty, original, we-don't-give-a-damn rock band came around? It's the same with hip hop. Most of the guys are selling out for the quick club anthem and are taking the easy way out with raps about violence and degrading women. Lil Wayne is an old artist with a new take on his style. So he's the exception and not the rule. He's been around since like 97. But for most of these artists who are really new to the game, they can't hold a candle to Nas. Illmatic was hip hop at its finest.

I totally agree with you. The hip hop songs I hear on the radio are not that good anymore, unlike before. The lyrics and beat are not that creative. Lil Wayne is so overrated, I don't know why he's so popular these days, also Drake and Nicki Minaj. I don't know what's happening with Eminem. Where is he now? Why is he being such a loner. Now that he returned from singing, and his Recovery Album was really good, he should continue his work. He's the only one who could save the hip hop industry.