A prompt, idea, and hope

I haven't posted in a long time. I was going to write something about the genius of OutKast because their jams were basically the anthems of my January, but Dave decided to be a dick and do it first. That being said, Hip-Hop as a genre is still fair game. And I'm still going to reference OutKast a few times.

Andre 3000 proclaimed, "I'm out here knowing Hip-Hop is dead, the average nigger on my corner yelling what the fuck you mean?" in 2001 and his bold statement and foresight have yet to be disproved. Hip-Hop is dead, or, hopefully, it's comatose. It's as shameful and pathetic as our moribund economy.
Sorry, I've been a little bit morose when it comes to the genre I love so dearly since 2009 rolled in, thereby officially ending a second straight year of laughable Hip-Hop output.
The other day I was walking around Boston with my sister and was, for the trillionth time, trying to figure out exactly why Hip-Hop today just isn't what it used to be; and I, with her help, was able to come up with something that will at least satiate me and keep me optimistic for another year or two. What we came up with, as obvious as it may seem, was that Hip-Hop is no longer music for subversives, but rather is the Pop music of today.
This is to say that it's no longer N'Sync and Backstreet Boys (much love, y'all) gracing the speakers of middle school socials nationwide, but rather Kanye West (respectable), UNK (omfgod), Lil' Wayne (he is a musical punner, not a rapper), and Soulja Boy (djnfdsfo) bumping while kids are grinding for the time and popping three centimeter boners. The music that once was saturated with and was wholly comprised of feeling-- a music that was about the lyrics --is now (d)evolving into a genre where lyrics are often indecipherable from their obnoxious beats.

Now, the existence of this form of music is not what annoys me; there is always a pretty disagreeable form of pop dominating media. What bothers me is that this barely recognizable form of Hip-Hop has not really emerged as a sub or splinter genre, but has pretty much taken the place of its forefather altogether.
It can be argued that pure Hip-Hop has not been around for a while, but at least there was a strong underground scene that cradled the embers of the genre and kept them just alive enough to keep fans hopeful. But Def Jux, DOOM, Grimm, and other legendary non-mainstreamers are agin, and a fresh new crop of insightfuls has yet to present itself.

Let's put our hands together and pray that Hip-Hop follows the route of a comatose Soap stud and awakens with a newfound vim and vigor after hindsight bites him in the ass and reminds him of what he had and where he came from.
-Thursday