by Harrison Samphir
“It takes two to make a thing go right / It takes two to make it out of sight / Hit it!”
-Rob Base & DJ E-Z Rock
If we take literally the adage “Hip Hop Is Dead,” what might rap’s epitaph look like? (I tend to imagine a large crypt sitting atop a hill somewhere in Queens.) Would it bemoan the cheapening of production methods in the late-1990s? Might it lament the decline of “conscious” lyricism and Afrocentricity through waves of commercialization after the new millennium? Should it outline, at least in partial detail, the changing image of the rap artist, now relegated to either solo or supergroup status? Continue reading “NONSTOPHIPHOP – What ever happened to the hip hop duo?”