Rubenerd

Interesting article on the sorry state of the music industry today and how all an artist has to do is say hoe or slut to sell a song. Where'd all the Jazz go?

http://www.fradical.com/Theworseit_gets.htm

Thanks to the wild success of artists like Ludacris, Nelly, Chingy and Beyoncé, for the first time in the 50-year history of the Billboard charts, black artists dominated the top 10 earlier this month, signalling hip-hop’s ascent as the driving force in pop music and culture.

The multi-billion dollar hip-hop industry, whose effects are felt across the board from fashion to advertising to slang, is under a lot more scrutiny lately because of its monstrous commercial appeal. It’s everywhere. Ludacris, Eminem, Jay-Z and Beyoncé are in movies and plug their own clothing lines while Justin Timberlake and Christina Aguilera have revamped their pop profiles with the help of hip-hop staples the Neptunes and Redman, and get downright “Dirrty” in videos.

So it’s not what’s on Billboard’s top 10 charts that’s amazing these days, but what’s actually still in it.

The only problem with this article: it makes the assumption that Hip Hop and Rap are actually music!

Where's Michael Franks when you need him?