R.I.P.?

So, for some years now, I've been hearing the repeated chant of everyone's favorite phrase; "Hip Hop is Dead". When, exactly, did this event take place?

If it DID occur, I'm pissed at whoever organized the funeral, because I damn sure wasn't there. How come TG didn't get invited to the largest celebration's of life & death of arguably the most awesome life force ever? I've been a part of it since the late 70's. Damnit, I deserved to pay my last respects in person, more so than a lot of other "fans". I'd heard rumors swirling for a couple of decades, but I didn't know for a fact that it was even sick. I knew something wasn't right with it, but I never imagined that Death lurked on the horizon. They say the good die young & by that mantra, it all makes sense. Yet again, I ask you, when did Hip Hop die?

Was it when Run DMC performed on stage with Aerosmith, forever fusing Rock & Rap? Though the two genres are distinctly different, they have more similarities than most choose to acknowledge. "Walk This Way" introduced the two genres to each other, & they have been seemingly inseparable ever since. Just ask The Beastie Boys.

Maybe it was the exact point that Death Row Records meandered it's way onto every video show, radio station & boomin' system for years, audaciously challenging the notion that good Hip Hop can't come outta the West coast.

What if mainstream America really did have it's vengeful sights set on taking yet another one of "our" creations, distorting it for their own purposes & force feeding back to the unknowing public. Unless I'm mistaken, Public Enemy warned us about such events in the late 80's. Many, many moons later, watered down lyrics & subpar soundscapes are tossed at us like monkeys with their poop. & to this day, most of our heroes STILL don't appear on no stamp.

Perhaps the first time you heard Soulja Boy you also heard a trumpet playing that soldier funeral song. Some go as far as to finger him as the last nail in the coffin, Superman dance & all. As fickle & tempered as hip hop fans are, they all seem to be in compliance about his house nigger antics spelling certain doom to our beloved culture.

& even still, the hipster onslaught is viewed as the last chapter in a book of meteoric rise & fall. Rap as we know it has been face-lifted, rearranged & shoved into a pair of liquid jeans & tie-dyed muscle shirts to the dismay of a nation.

For what it's worth, I think Hip Hop is an animal of change; a chameleon of artistic expression that one can never truly label. Constant change as opposed to permanent expiration. An energy like that can't ever be extinguished.

& if the "dead" statement holds any truth, then surely there's plenty of fault to be spread around. The death of Record Labels. The birth of easily accessible Internets. The influx of mediocrity and gimmick. The insatiable greed & lust for dividends. The miseducation of a people. The proverbial list is endless................

If Hip Hop is dead, as so many detractors keep lamenting, then when did it happen? & who's head is to be had?