The State Of Hip-Hop

Posted by Kenny Smith

What is the state of Hip-Hop? Depending on who you ask, you will get different responses. Generally, responses will consist of either “it’s great, artists are making more money now than ever before,” or “it’s not how it used to be, everything sounds the same.” Well, they’re both right. My belief is that somewhere along the line as Hip-Hop evolved, it began to have data, statistics, and track records. And when it became understood that it was a multi-billion dollar industry, it took on another form.

Let’s compare Hip-Hop to a simplified Advertising Industry. In advertising, you have various different agencies geared towards selling a particular product. The ad agency’s job is to create the most effective advertisement to sell the product. In Hip-Hop, the ad agencies are the record labels, and the product is Hip-Hop music essentially. The labels’ main objective is to sell as much music (the product) by creating the most effective record (the advertisement) as possible.

In an ad agency, there is a specific department designated to create the ad that will sell effectively. This is the creative department, made up of art directors and copywriters, theoretically. The copywriter creates the words for the advertisement, and the art director makes the visual. In Hip-Hop, this would be considered the recording artist and the producer.

Now the number one objective in any ad agency is to sell, and after buying, researching and strategizing a plan, it is the creative department’s job to present an ad that will meet the client’s goal. Unfortunately, creativity is abolished and simplicity is welcomed because the main concern is SELLING the product. A copywriters integrity and craftsmanship have to be put aside, as it has been researched that simple, straight-to-the-point direct selling techniques are guaranteed winners.