

In a piece called "Hip-hop is no longer cooler than me," Salon’s Paul Kix argues that the once-forward-thinking genre has lost its way in a maze of dance steps and oversimplified production:

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We are witnessing nothing less than the Macarena-zation of a genre.

Because of Soulja Boy’s success, industry execs now demand that newartists have dances at the ready to accompany their albums. The danceshelp drive up sales, that fast-disappearing commodity. And so theairwaves and Interwebs are still filthy with song-and-dance numbers,

like Pop It Off Boyz’ "Crank Dat Batman" and last year’s "Chicken Noodle Soup" song, which accomplishes the impossible by being dumber than it sounds but remains great fun for 50-year-olds in middle management

… Look, I’m not confused or annoyed by hip-hop, like older rock fans areby, say, Fall Out Boy. More than anything I’m embarrassed. Since whendid young black men, heretofore the arbiters of pop culture, become solame? And since when did the citizens of that culture not know thedifference?

A friend of mine who has been the editor of at least one major musicmagazine once told me hip-hop was the only form of music he still cared about, because nothing else was making any kind of significant forward progress. However, he agreed with Kix that it’s running out of steam.

I can’t agree with anyone who says musical progress is over, because that’s as ludicrous as the claim made in the early part of last century that the US Patent Office should be closed because everything had been discovered. As far as popular music goes, hip-hop has offered a rare combination of innovation and popularity lacking in other genres, but…

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Photo: Jonathan "Sesshomaru" Speed