Hip hop, however, while formed as a tool to illustrate the inequities of our society, did not inherently reject the trappings of success. Calling Snoop a sell-out does not render him impotent within his scene, as it would with more traditional punk bands; rather, he’s proof that success is attainable. Furthermore, Snoop is not THE doyen of hip hop. Dr. Dre has moved from the mic to the boards, creating protégé’s with legacies of their own. Russell Simmons runs a hip hop media empire that came out of breaking his brother’s group, Run DMC; twenty years after the fact, Joseph Simmons is, among other things, an author. Hip hop allows its participants to mature, and therefore mature itself. A finer point and a flip side is the accessability of the form and the numerous inroads available due to the inherent flexibility of the genre.

If any sort of formal recognition of staying power over trend is still necessary, please look to the continued existence of hip hop-specific Grammy and Billboard categories.

It’s always hard to know when something has truly peaked, and often only possible in hindsight. Grunge stayed on the radio for two-three years after Cobain’s death, but only later did we realize that boomlet peaked in 1993 and thoroughly died after 1994. Alternatively, sometimes movements are proclaimed dead too early: disco was supposed to have been “killed” at Comiskey Park in 1979, but tell that to Donna Summer and Blondie, still scoring thumping, four-on-the-floor hits until 1982 or so. (Hell, tell it to New Order in 1983. Or Madonna, for that matter.)

Hip-hop should’ve peaked about 10 times by now. Wasn’t it already “too popular” back in ’97, when Puffy exploded with all those cheesy, ’80s-sampling hits? What about when Lauryn Hill won her (deserved, but still) Album of the Year Grammy in 1999? Or when Fitty had the biggest-selling debut album ever back in 2003? The mainstreaming of Eminem; the abandonment of rap by André 3000 for alt-pop and Hollywood; the multiple retirements of Jay-Z; the entire career of Nelly – there’ve been many, many Signs Of Rap’s Apocalypse, going all the way back to the 1990 one-two punch of MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, and still the music perseveres.

For the record, I think 2005 has been the weakest year for hip-hop, bar none, commercially and artistically, since about 1995. But I would be a fool to predict a direct downward slope for hip-hop; more like a plateau.

snoop does car commercial with lee iacocca

and now some more words from the chicago sun times:

Aug 6/05:

Former Chrysler Corp. chairman Lee Iacocca and Snoop Dogg appear together in Chrysler’s latest ads for its employee-pricing program, a duo guaranteed to raise some eyebrows.

The 80-year-old Iacocca and Snoop Dogg, who made his name rapping about sex and marijuana, appear as golf buddies in the ad, scheduled to begin airing today.

At the end of the TV spot, Snoop Dogg says: ”If the ride is more fly, then you must buy.” Iacocca responds: ”That’s what I hear.”

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if this isn’t a turning point i don’t know what is. (i think snoop calls lee “ia-kizzle” in the spot too); it doesn’t seem to be airing in canada but you south of the 49th parallel types have probably seen it already.

Grant over at This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics has written a fantastic post about hip-hop/rap’s dominance of music and the possible downfall. From a youth’s perspective, hip-hop/rap is somewhat close to the…

I think that hip hop is here for the duration, or least, it’s here for as long as Black America wants it to be. The Black culture in America dictates a lot of trends, and will continue to do so because their trends don’t surface to high up to the point that they are an actual threat to dominating white, mainstream American culture. It’s seems to be cycling at this perfect rate, at the perfect height. I think this has been happening for years and I don’t see it changing in the foreseeable future.