Hot 97 is a rhythmic station. They are no longer urban.... and I'm not sure what the reasoning is behind that change. I guess they are now one of those who also play hip hop influenced pop and dance hits, like many stations have started doing. No Britney, but yes Gaga because she's affiliated directly with an urban label. Hot 97 was also rhythmic back when Lisa Lisa, Trinere, Nocera, Cynthia, Corina... etc were big...
As far as hip hop goes, I really don't care for most of the stuff I used to love back in early 2001 or so. I remember always playing "bitches on my back" by Mobb Deep and a bunch of other stuff I discovered on Dj Clue and Dj Envy and other similar cd's, and I remember being banned from calling into a certain radio station's underground hip hop show because I'd always get the songs right and win every week and they got sick of me getting all the prizes 5 weeks straight... After my no call in time was up a few weeks later, I was soon banned again a second time for a few months.
Atlanta was pretty much the place that got me into the hard hip hop in the late 90's..... and it didn't help that all my favorite stations started switching to that everywhere else I went, but when 2007 hit, I started turning away from it once again for obvious reasons. If it wasn't for the changes that took place and the sudden disappearance of many dumb songs that were beginning to be released, I probably would've converted completely to alternative by now, because I was surely going in that direction once I began to hear some of the hits silly rappers were beginning to put out.
Thanks to Timbaland, Akon, Will-I-Am, Red One, Missy Elliott and all of those who are bringing back (and keeping true to) the true creativity of experimenting with different sounds. This is what keeps me interested. I also believe that Timbaland and Missy don't get all the credit and recognition they deserve for basically changing the sound of music twice..... (how many dance styled songs have you heard in the top 40/rhythmic charts after dance seemingly disappeared around late 2002 or so before "sexy back" and "lose control" were released? How many songs used that futuristic and complicated beats style that Timbaland and Missy kicked off in the late 90's before "one and a million" by Aaliyah was created and produced by Timbaland or before Missy's "I can't stop the rain"?" Think about it...) I give Timbaland and Missy most of the credit for where we are today as far as the electro-pop and dance sound. They opened up the doors for this sound to be accepted once again today (similar to how Nore and Nina Sky opened up the doors for reggaeton...), and who knows where this new modernized dance style will lead to? A modernized version House and Bass music is basically already back in many ways... If there was no "lose control" or "sexy back", then there would have been no "control myself" or "fergalicious" or "get up".... which eventually lead to... "closer", "disturbia", "forever".....etc. Rihanna's "s.o.s." alone wouldn't have been enough to re-jumpstart this entire trend of dance music (not to mention, that song came out unusually way too early because now would've been a more appropriate time to release it..) and Pitbull probably wouldn't be where he is today with his success in latin house hits if he did the exact same things without this whole evolution process unfolding the way it did. He'd most likely be stuck in latin charts. I'm not sure if Will-I-Am would've been able to start up this uptempo trend alone. Akon definitely wouldn't be getting by with most of the stuff he's done lately, and Lil Jon would probably still be making beats similar to "Yeah" by Usher, or "freek-a-leek" or "goodies"... or even the "snap yo fingaz" sound (btw, he (Lil Jon) is pretty much the one who returned us to the simple, easy to make beats, after the old school complicated style Timbaland and Missy beats started disappearing). As a matter of fact, without Timbaland and Missy coming back with a "new" dance style in 2004-2005, we would've probably gone in a completely different direction, and Dj Class would probably just be sitting somewhere very bored right now..............etc. (Outkast is just one of a kind, and no matter what happens in music, they have their own sound, no one copies it, and they neither follow or set any trends.)
Dr Dre was good too, but as hot as his beats are, they were never as complicated as Timbaland and Missy's late 90's, early 2000 style. The Neptunes I would say got many of their 2000 style sound ideas from Timbaland...
Well, anyway..... I do like quite a bit of the recent stuff coming out these days with sensible lyrics, but nowadays I will (once again) no longer accept anything with (how can I put this delicately?) stupid and unnecessary lyrics, and I have my reasons for this, which I will not get into on this site. I also have people that have asked me "how could you get tired of hip hop? that's your heritage" because I am black, but, I also do not follow these "rules" of society that people create that most religiously live up to, which is also another separate topic I will not address here at this time. Unfortunately, I was deeply into all this uncut hip hop stuff when my sister was at a very young age and kept exposing it to her, so now I am paying the price for that. She is now the age I was around 2000 or 2002, 2003 or so when I was always feeding her this unedited music, so just think about it... In reality, I shouldn't say I've lost interest in hip hop, but rather, I've lost interest in the typical sound of hip hop.
Hip hop will indeed never die, but just continue to evolve, just like rock n roll, jazz, disco, and other forms of music that have already had their first big break into the mainstream. As of right now, we are headed into an electro-pop direction, which may eventually lead into the return of a new style of dance/house/breaks...etc... but I wont even get into this here now because that is a whole new topic in itself. Things are looking pretty exciting when it comes to dance music because if you look at how long the hip hop phase and generation has lasted, the chances are that the dance sound could very well last just as long, and this time manage to co-exist with other genres on the charts instead of just dying again when its "high" passes, just like rock and other genres have managed to continue charting a bit along with whatever became the next big thing, even after its time has passed. Country? well, let me not even get into that. That style of music is like health care in a weak economy. No matter what happens in music, country continues to seemingly remain consistent in it's own unique way. They even have their own separate music channel dedicated purely to that genre alone on t.v, and always seem to continuously maintain a certain level of popularity within itself, regardless of what other phases are taking place in other genres of music.
Oh, by the way, Rap is something you do, Hip Hop is something you live. (Hmmmm... I probably should've just started with that to begin with!)
