I'm standing at the bus stop, listening to Feist. I haven't been able to turn her music off for at least 2 months. I try to take a break from it only to find myself grabbing my iPod in the morning, because I NEED it. If you don't know about her, she was the one who garnered great success after a song of hers (1-2-3-4) was used in an iPod commercial. Talk about good marketing. Apple more or less thrust her on unassuming listeners. Potentially bad for her *die hard* fans; great for me.
Back to my point... I hardly listen to rap at this point. Not because I don't want to, but simply because all I seem to hear is more of the same. Sure, albums have dropped that have been great listening material for a few days, perhaps a few weeks... But they burn out so quickly! There's no DEPTH. As a connoisseur of music, its hard for me to remain entertained by anything, let alone an 8 bar loop with some cat talkin' about the hood. Been there. Done ALL of that.
It seems to me that this genre has just grown stagnant. No one is really PUSHING it. Sure, you've got the Def Jux folks, and Prefuse, etc etc... But that shit had its moment in the sun. It was different, and new, not necessarily refreshing, but at least it was new. Now even THAT shit has slowed to a crawl.
To be entirely honest, I feel like people like The Neptunes, Timbaland,and Lupe Fiasco are some of the most forward thinking. I mean, the neptunes continue to reinvent themselves. Timbo REINVENTED R & B! He may have done it on the backs of dance music-producers, but the fact is, he changed the game with Sexy Back. And after that, Icebox sealed the deal. Lupe's new album is entirely concept based! Finally! A new rap record with a cohesive concept!
I don't claim to have any solutions to this, only perhaps that hip hop artists and producers especially, listen to more music! There's a whole world of great stuff, why not take full advantage?
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