Polaroids Of Androids

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Quote: "Wu-Tang is for the children. We teach the children. You know what I mean? Puffy is good, but Wu-Tang is the best, Okay?"

At the 1998 Grammys, when Ol' Dirty Bastard rushed the stage and declared his unhappiness about Puff Daddy beating out Wu-Tang Clan for the Hip-hop Album Of The Year award, it's highly doubtful he fully grasped the importance of his actions. That moment is often referenced (well, by me at least) as a 'line in the sand' for the genre - the end of the golden era of hip-hop and the commencement of it's pop-focused, commercially diluted bastardisation.

Couldn't have put it better.

hip-hops most disappointing decade?

have you been living under a rock?

in comparison to the 90s, the 80s and even that little bit of the 70s it's definitely been the least creative.. (imho)

Loved the writing for this review Jonny, nice work.

making a retrospective statement across decades is just setting yourself up for disappointment. it's impossible to make comparisons, particularly because the way music is being produced and distributed has transformed beyond our ability to measure it wholistically anymore. i don't really know what you mean by creative but if you can't see any creativity in Madlib - Quasimoto, Madvillain, Jaylib, J Dilla, Slum Village, J5, The Roots, Doom, Georgia Ann Muldrow and Dudley Perkins, Kanye West, Dilated Peoples, Missy Elliot and Timbaland, M.I.A., Hudson Mohawke, Pharoahe Monch, RJD2, Talib Kweli, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, Sa-Ra, Ghostface, Jay-Z, 9th Wonder, OutKast - then i don't even really know how you define hip hop.

But you can't escape the fact that most of those acts (with a few exceptions there) struggle to have the widespread cultural impact of the acts of bygone decades. Again, there are exceptions, but for the most part quality hip-hop has sunk to an under-the-radar status. Widespread culture recognizes today's hip-hop as the "comercially diluted basterdisation" (to quote Jonny) ... not much of the good stuff is rising to the surface.

That being said, I'm not the most qualified person to speak on this subject and I'll look forward to hearing what others have to say.

yeah but that's the way it goes with everything. i mean you can say that no rock band will ever be bigger and have a greater impact than the beatles. or punk band bigger and better than the ramones. or that reggae died with bob marley. but just because rolling stone or pitchfork can say in retrospect that they were great doesn't mean that your favourite bands creating music today are less creative or less talented than those artists we can idolise from afar.

it's not like i'm the voice of hip-hop or anything, but music has changed and labels can't shove what is important down our throats anymore with press and marketing (particularly in Australia where we just filter hip-hop from America), so it is up to us to make hip-hop popular. it is just a shame when people miss out on what is happening right under their nose and those artists, particularly in the case of J Dilla, do struggle to make a 'cultural' impact when they're lightyears ahead of their time.

heya soph.. all good stuff being raised in this discussion.. especially compared to all the bots/fuckheads over in that BDO thread.. :)

i actually started responding to your original comments.. but flukazoid has pretty much nailed it.. and your response is also spot on with what i was thinking for my rebuttal..

i do think the changing form of music consumption has definitely affected how it is treated as an artform.. but i also find it's interesting that, for the first time in the history of the genre, the public's viewpoint of those 'winning' hip-hop (ie. kanye, t-pain etc) is at the other end of the spectrum to those who are actually pushing the genre forward (ie. the artists you rightfully listed, soph)..

the failure for styles of hip-hop, like the production work of J-Dilla, to crossover into the public spectrum might be because of the changing business model/climate of music but also because of the way in which (real) hip-hop is once again pushing back away from mainstream culture, and becoming more of an underground movement... in many ways this signifies that it is heading back to it's roots..

i think the point i was originally trying to make was that this record is designed for mass consumption - it's by a well-established artist, who is well respected and had a fairly successful career (although definitely hit and miss) - yet it still feels creatively free and genuinely innovative...

but as said this is all just opinion.. and i am really happy this discussion is happening.. so i look forward to some more ideas being thrown around on this topic..

if we are measuring hip hop's success failure by the degree to which the most innovative artists have achieved mainstream success then, yes, this decade has been a failure. it's hard to call it completely disappointing when there has been a heap of rad stuff put out though. i agree that the failure is not so much within hip hop and it's producers but within the industry and its business models.

it's not surprising that those making the most money aren't the most successful. you could say the same has happened to electronic music over the last decade. it's what happens when channel v and nova jump on the bandwagon.

besides, this decade has saul williams. 'nuff said.

you know what, i think hip-hop has been really influential on a subconscious level in that it is accessible to everyone now. i really don't think we would even be having this conversation last decade on an indie rock music blog. i mean you listen to something that's just come out like Hudson Mohawke's 'Butter' and i can't imagine a Glaswegian teenager pulling off IDM sounding hip-hop ten years ago. I mean hip-hop is the pulse of this decade, it isn't something separate and significant in the way it was when wu-tang or biggie were starting out. I mean OutKast, Missy Elliot and Kanye West (or at least his first few albums) have made really creative and interesting popular music in contrast to Shania Twain and the Backstreet Boys or something.