Hip Hop Is Dead

Hip Hop Is Dead is the eighth studio album by American rapper Nas, released December 19, 2006 on Def Jam Recordings. His first album for the label, it was co-financed by Nas's previous label, Columbia Records, which once distributed for Def Jam. The album's title was inspired by Nas's view of the music industry and the state of hip hop music at the time.

The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart, selling 355,880 copies in its first week. His fourth U.S. number-one album, it had sold 764,000 copies by November 2008, eventually over time it went platinum. Upon its release, Hip Hop Is Dead received generally positive reviews from most music critics. Hip Hop Is Dead was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap Album, ultimately losing to Kanye West's Graduation at the 50th Grammy Awards

Background

Nas announced the album's title after a performance on May 18, 2006. In a late September interview on English DJ Tim Westwood's Radio show, Nas said, "Hip-hop is dead because we as artists no longer have the power." He went on to say, "Could you imagine what 50 Cent could be doing, Nas, Jay, Eminem, if we were the Jimmy Iovines? Could you imagine the power we'd have? I think that's where we're headed." He has described the album as a mixture of "street" records, "political" records and collaborations. In another interview for MTV.com, Nas discussed the concept of the album title and the social atmosphere and condition of the music industry that inspired it, stating:

Hip Hop Is Dead (song)

"Hip Hop Is Dead" is the first and title single taken from Nas' 2006 album of the same name. It is produced by and features will.i.am. It peaked at number 48 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs chart, as well as number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100. On December 31, 2007, the music video for "Hip Hop Is Dead" appeared at number 93 on BET's Notarized: Top 100 Videos of 2007 countdown, even though the video was released in December 2006.

Overview

The lyrics deal with the idea of hip-hop's death as artistically viable music, as explained below:

Nas clearly decries the idea that hip hop has gone the way of commercialization, pledging to stay true to its origins, as in the last line of verse 1, where Nas mentions MC Shan and MC Ren, by saying So nigga, who's your top ten, is it MC Shan is it MC Ren.

Nas also mentions NBA commissioner David Stern.

Original samples

"Hip Hop Is Dead" contains samples of "Apache" performed by the Incredible Bongo Band, and "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida" performed by Iron Butterfly. Nas previously used the same sample on "Thief's Theme". In the second verse Nas uses the line "the bigger the cap the bigger the peelin'" which was used in Ice Cube's tracks "Steady Mobbin'" and "No Vaseline" off his 1991 album Death Certificate.

Hip hop

Hip hop or hip-hop is a sub-cultural movement that formed during the early 1970s by African-American and Puerto Rican youths residing in the South Bronx in New York City. It became popular outside of the African-American community in the late 1980s and by the 2000s became the most listened-to musical genre in the world. It is characterized by four distinct elements, all of which represent the different manifestations of the culture: rap music (oral), turntablism or DJing (aural), b-boying (physical) and graffiti art (visual). Even while it continues to develop globally in myriad styles, these four foundational elements provide coherence to hip hop culture. The term is often used in a restrictive fashion as synonymous only with the oral practice of rap music.

The origin of the hip hop culture stems from the block parties of the Ghetto Brothers, when they plugged in the amplifiers for their instruments and speakers into the lampposts on 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue and used music to break down racial barriers, and from DJ Kool Herc at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, where Herc mixed samples of existing records with his own shouts to the crowd and dancers. Kool Herc is credited as the "father" of hip hop. DJ Afrika Bambaataa of the hip hop collective Zulu Nation outlined the pillars of hip hop culture, to which he coined the terms: MCing or "Emceein", DJing or "Deejayin", B-boying and graffiti writing or "Aerosol Writin".

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop or rap music, is a music genre formed in the United States in the 1970s that consists of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted. It developed as part of hip hop culture, a subculture defined by four key stylistic elements: MCing/rapping, DJing/scratching, break dancing, and graffiti writing. Other elements include sampling (or synthesis), and beatboxing.

While often used to refer to rapping, "hip hop" more properly denotes the practice of the entire subculture. The term hip hop music is sometimes used synonymously with the term rap music, though rapping is not a required component of hip hop music; the genre may also incorporate other elements of hip hop culture, including DJing, turntablism, and scratching, beatboxing, and instrumental tracks.

Hip-hop dance

Hip-hop dance refers to street dance styles primarily performed to hIP HOP or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture. It includes a wide range of styles primarily breaking, locking, and popping which were created in the 1970s and made popular by dance crews in the United States. The television show Soul Train and the 1980s films Breakin', Beat Street, and Wild Style showcased these crews and dance styles in their early stages; therefore, giving hip-hop mainstream exposure. The dance industry responded with a commercial, studio-based version of hip-hop—sometimes called "new style"—and a hip-hop influenced style of jazz dance called "jazz-funk". Classically trained dancers developed these studio styles in order to create choreography from the hip-hop dances that were performed on the street. Because of this development, hip-hop dance is practiced in both dance studios and outdoor spaces.

The commercialization of hip-hop dance continued into the 1990s and 2000s with the production of several television shows and movies such as The Grind, Planet B-Boy, Rize, StreetDance 3D, America's Best Dance Crew, Saigon Electric, the Step Up film series, and The LXD, a web series. Though the dance is established in entertainment, including mild representation in theater, it maintains a strong presence in urban neighborhoods which has led to the creation of street dance derivatives Memphis jookin, turfing, jerkin', and krumping.