There was no need to change the station because a smile would start to spread across my face and bring back good memories.

Artist like Tupac, Biggie, Too Short etc. brought radio worthy tunes to fans all over the world.

It wasn’t about having the hottest single but a great overall album.

Hip Hop really meant something.

So what happened?

Music today is all about the beat and whether it is a club banger.

The bubble gum lyrics the rappers provide in their songs are nothing compared to the metaphoric rhymes that were in songs from the past.

Yes, every artist has to find their own sound for their generation, but someone has to admit that Soulja Boy isn’t the new coming of Tupac.
With nursery rhymes in every song that he has put out, I have to wonder why is it that everyone wants more from him?

When the major labels see that great beats and mediocre rhymes are what the new generation are raving for they push the great artist to the side.

Today labels are looking for a great single not a great all around artist or album which gives out these one-hit wonders.

Yes, I like a great party song too, but when I’m ready to relax, sit back and chill, I want that feeling that I once had as an adolescent, and not became enraged from the garbage that I hear on my stereo.

According to a blog on WordPress by professor Phil Rutledge, lecturer of sociology and American studies at UNC Charlotte, said, “When we see pop culture in the modern world, we usually mean, that culture is supported by the mainstream, that culture is supported by the industries, that culture is supported by the economic forces.”

Oh yea I forgot…the beat.

Hip Hop shouldn’t be about the sound produced but about the whole package.

Hip Hop is becoming too mainstream and accessible and has turned into being all about money, cars and girls.

Just like rapper Common explained in the song “I Used to Love Her,” his love song to hip hop, he described his love of  hip-hop and its evolution by comparing it to a woman that has changed over the years. “It was like a woman. I woke up, it was Hip Hop. I went to bed, it was Hip Hop.”

Music will never be as pure as it once was.

Maybe we are getting old, or maybe music still has a message secretly hidden in the background.

Naw, I don’t think so.

The one culture that has been built up from the urban neighborhoods to the lives of many is being commercialized.

Media decides what’s popular and society goes along with it.

Hopefully the new major labels will snap out of it and stop worrying solely about money and let the quality of Hip Hop surface back on the mainstream.

For now, people like me will have to pull out the old cds to listen to our favorite songs from the past.

Our heads will begin bobbing and a smile will once again spread across our face with great memories of what once was.

Now that’s Hip Hop.