Did Mass Culture Kill the Hip-Hop Star

The perspective that J-Zone is conveying on what has happened to Hip-Hip music is a reminder of my experience with old school Hip-Hop. I’m driving around in Norway from point A to B then back to A again. While doing this I surf the local radio channels and catch what I still think was a college radio station. As I pick people up, they comment on the music as old school, Grand Master Flash, Kurtis Blow, etc. I‘m not in the least a connoisseur of Hip-Hop, but it had a resonance to it. That is what J-Zone is trying to say, much of the Hip-Hop music produced now does not have the same quality as opposed to the quantity he speaks of, the music that reflects an emotional attachment. (J-Zone)
The idea of nostalgic may be a way of looking at what J-Zone is saying; In Cultural Theory and Pop Culture, Storey highlights Richards Hoggart’s The Uses of Literacy  as a nostalgic look back into his past growing up in the 1930s to an academic examination of the effects of mass culture in the 1950s (Storey). There may be an implied concept of J-Zone nostalgic approach to Hip-Hop, the music during the time of his youth, but from an artist point of view, there is more to it than what was the best of at that time.
J-Zone presents five viable reasons why the evolution of Hip-Hop has moved away from that resonance. The first thing he mentions is the watered down effect of mass collaboration. The results are not a cohesive music album, which carries to his second topic of too much music. Without any anticipation of what to expect dilutes the experience. With the influx of “Crews” and “Cliques” provides the “other” credibility, which is not based on the quality of music alone. He clarifies this by saying “the collection of songs” are not about the “identity of one artist” but a collaboration of many, “we’ve lost album cohesiveness and the focus on just music.” With multiple producers, the influx of mass produced mixes and the internet has perpetuated this void in Hip-Hip.
The ability to supply the public “in stacks” definitely causes a watering down effect. To include the aspect of taking the whole endeavor too seriously “without balance.” He also touches on having fun, not taking yourself or the music so seriously that all that is left is the faux credibility that is more dependent on amount of media exposure than the artist themselves. Of course, the profits for royalties and music companies’ are made from record sales. That too has changed.
The last two items are almost the same, technology has advanced so that the royalties for artist and the revenue for the music companies have declined. What was once free “samplings” have become legal issues. The struggle of legal boundaries for an industry that is losing profits in the digital era brings a final point that may be seen as a credibility of the artists and the people who commodify their products.
What was an unspoken truth of the music industry, Payola is not as explicit a problem today but a valid point was made during the Congressional hearing of September 25, 2007, on hip hop music: From Imus to Industry: The Business of Stereotypes and Degrading Images. Lisa Fager argued that misogynistic and racist stereotypes permeate hip-hop music because record labels, radio stations, and music video channels profit from allowing such material to air while censoring other material (Wiki). In that context, Fager stated:
Payola is no longer the local DJ receiving a couple dollars for airplay;it is now an organized corporate crime that supports the lack of balanced content and demeaning imagery with no consequences (Fager)

Jimi Fallon and Justin Timberlake covers of the "Old School"

J-Zone. "5 Things That Killed Hip-Hop." Petracca, Michael and Madeleine Sorapure. Reading Popular Culture. New York, NY: Penguin Academics, 2011. 66-74.

Storey, John. Cutlural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, 5th edition. Harlow: Pearson Education, 2009.

Wikipedia.org/wiki/Payola

Fager, Lisa. http://www.c3.ucla.edu/newsstand/media/ from-imus-to-industry-the-business-of-degradation-in-rap-music/. 3 10 2007. 30 01 2012.