Chris Brown Believes That Hip-Hop Is Dead
Chris Brown has the rap forums abuzz over remarks he made about hip-hop in an interview with Fuse TV (spotted at Complex). The R&B crooner believes that hip-hop is dying off as a brand (or genre) because of its lack of marketability and profitability.
According to Brown, since the music industry is “broke,” record labels are not shelling out hugh budgets for music production, videos and promotion. Since Brown is a workhorse in the studio and has hundreds of songs recorded, he would rather release them on iTunes rather than go through the record label route. This would explain the countless songs he’s been releasing for the past several weeks.
“The industry is so broke that it’s starting to kill our creative side as far as videos and budgets,” he explains. “I started when they had $600-800,000 video budgets. My ‘Run It’ video was around that. Now they say, ‘We got $50,000.’”
“You know how they said hip-hop is dead, certain s— is dead? It’s really dead, you know, because nobody believes in the brand anymore,” he continues.”If we don’t do it, who gonna do it ? I’m like, f— it, I’ll do it myself.”
While Brown may not be the best person to talk about the state of hip-hop, others have shared his opinion about the genre’s lack of creativity. In 2006, Nas gave his eulogy to the culture on his album ‘Hip-Hop Is Dead.’ With some of today’s hip-hop artists singing or rapping over pop-infused EDM tracks, many have wondered if the essence of hip-hop (and R&B, for that matter) is still thriving anymore.
However, if you listen to underground rap you would be hard-pressed to say that hip-hop is dead. From a cultural standpoint, hip-hop is very much alive. It’s the music industry that’s dying a slow death.
What do you think? Is hip-hop dead? Tell us in the comments below.
Watch Chris Brown Talk About Ancient Aliens, Hip-Hop and the Music Industry with Fuse TV