Was NaS Right: Is Hip-Hop Dead?

Not yet, but numbers-wise the condition is critical. Sales for the genre are down more than 20%. (The music biz's overall sales are down about 18%.) Kanye West and 50 Cent—who last year duked it out in first week sales—have together moved 3 million copies of their respective recent albums. (50's 2005 release The Massacre sold over 5 million copies on its own.) Then again, if what we see here in NYC is a valid example, it certainly doesn't help that the piracy/bootlegging going on in neighborhoods where the music is most popular is rampant to say the least. And we're not even talking about online "sharing".

Personally, we feel hip-hop is coming out of its own "hair band" era: fans are tiring of the style over substance of most crunk and gangsta rap and are looking/waiting for something new to excite them and inspire them. But what do we know?

The New York Times' Kalefa Sanneh looks into it.