10 Things That Changed Hip Hop This Past Decade, Numbers:10-7

Party like it is 1999. Remember that one. Well if you have not noticed it is the year 2009. Boy have the years passed by. We are thirty years removed from Rapper's Delight, and pop culture has changed. Rappers move industries and pop culture is partly dominated with rap culture. What has hip hop not given us since its inception? One aspect of hip hop culture that is forgotten at times is the slang. Yes, hip hop has gone through many slang terms but the omnipresent 'yo' serves as an address-er to the public at large .

So this list is the 10 Things that has changed Hip hop culture in the past 10 years. Even though the year is not over, these 10 things have made an impact on the culture at large. Enjoy and reminisce.

10) Hip Hop Bloggers- Yes, hip hop like the media culture at large is shifting online. The influence of hip hop bloggers is serious. Blogs became super important as people started to look at them for news. What happened? Well hip hop's opinions are now online. Every rapper recognizes their influence. MTV and famous hip hop magazines have also shown to believe in the people leaving their opinions on blogs. Problematic? Yes. We don't know who is leaving their opinion on a blog, it could be a well schooled scholar of hip hop, or the kid who was introduced to hip hop by Soulja Boy (DEEP sigh). Time will tell if these people's opinions matter. Shoutout to all the people who leave FIRST comments.

9) Retirement??-So Jay-Z became the first rapper to publicly retire and have a going away album. He also became the first rapper to come back from a public retirement and have a comeback album. Kingdom Come was an epic failure but where does that lead us? Well Jay-Z has been lifted to a status that only 'The Notorious B.I.G.' and '2pac' have occupied. He sits as the one of the top MC's of all time. MTV and their 'braintrust' dubbed Jay-Z as the best rapper of all time. What cannot be denied is that Jay-Z did sell over 50 million records worldwide. Has he lost his step? What cannot be denied is that success changed Jay-Z as a rapper. He is not as raw as he once was. Although a lot of the topics have not changed, his delivery and message in the music has. The Jay-Z of Reasonable Doubt is fresh off the street, emotional, and is close to going back. The Jay-Z of American Gangster looks back,and in all essence is mature. Jay-Z manages to maintain a level of integrity in his music, minus a Sunshine video (Jay-Z heads chuckle with me). There is no doubt in this world that his music is completely pop now. But this move in 2003 was a big movement in hip hop.

8) Battle of the Decade- Jay-Z vs. Nas. I am a huge Jay-Z fan but I have to admit that Nas won this battle. Jay-Z did have the most disrespectful lyric though
'I came in ya Bentley backseat
Skeeted in Jeep
Left condoms in ya baby seat'. Truth be told even that was not enough. How big is this battle? Well arguably 2 of the top 5 rappers of all time battled each other. Both of these rappers have sold millions of records and left there stamp on hip hop. Both of them are the only rappers from the mid 90's era that can still sell a million records (I'm willing to debate this). 2001. Jay-Z is what Lil Wayne apparently is now, the person who runs rap. Up until that point Jay's record has been flawless (minus the Sunshine video). He was untouchable. He goes after one of raps greats. He puts out the legendary diss-track 'Takeover' and performs it at Summer Jam.

Months later Nas responds with 'Either'. My favorite line on that track is 'Shawn Carter to Jay-Z, damn you on Jaz dick'. The whole track is just hard. He gets on everything that Jay-Z is about. It's his execution. Jay-Z stans would never admit to this but, he lost. Don't worry, its just one blip in Jay-Z's career. He recovered just fine. And for Nas, it helped bring him back to the limelight. He then went on to make classic tracks in the decade.



7) Who runs rap?- Lil Wayne. Admit it. Lil Wayne is the hottest rapper at the moment (Drake's first album still did not come out yet, sorry. The buzz off his mixtapes is crazy though I agree.). Lil Wayne is sought after for most tracks, and can make or break many people's hits. What do we owe to Lil Wayne. Well T-Pain success sky rocketed in part to his many collaborations with Lil Wayne (Yes, T-Pain could have been successful without him, but still, it would not be the same, Weren't they going to do an album together?). He has given voice to another section of the country in his raps.

So how did he do it? Its simple really, completely change and upgrade your rap flow and skill and you too can be Lil Wayne. I started to pay attention to him with 'Tha Carter' (anything before that is yaaaawwwnnnn). His flow was different. It was rhythmic. Think of Snoop Dogg and his buzz in the 90's, everyone said he sounded different, well, Lil Wayne is the same. How did he introduce people to his new flow? His mixtapes. 'The Drought' the 'Dedication' series and other mixtapes propelled Lil Wayne to the rap forfront. He does lose a lot of credibility though, there is the controversal kisses to Baby, and the alleged ghost writer of Gillie da Kid. However, he has impacted hip hop this decade. If you don't believe me think of all the features he was on.



This was too big to put in one blog, so I chopped it up. The rest of the list will be published in the coming days