The music business has taken a turn for the worst.  There was a time when a performer actually had to be talented in order to get a buzz started.  Now all you have to do is post a crazy video on youtube, or show some abs on facebook and your an overnight success.  The R&B market has suffered because some of it's great vocalists have died, and the majority are getting too old to appeal to the younger generations.  Pop music does well, because half of the music we call rap are pop songs.  The strongest and perhaps the most influential culture in the world, since the invention of the television is hip hop.  A choice few really know what hip hop is.  Hip hop is not the music, it's the way of life the music is talking about.  If we continue to accept the type of music that is considered to be hip hop music, we are going to lose the unique qualities that have made the culture so influential.  Now I know that we need all forms of entertainment, but once we lose our lifestyle, we're done.  Hip hop is about honestly expressing life as you see it, not letting the outside world dictate to you what has to be done.  In the early days of our culture, the late 70's through the 80's, we didn't have examples of how we were supposed to be, we were just who we are.  They call my generation, generation x, or the pepsi generation because we lived at a pace of life never seen before by the world.  All flavors of Lee jeans with the permanent creases in them, the Lee patch on the leg and not the butt, fish head adidas or city keds, the list goes on, Mike Tyson was our president.  We need to keep our spot.  The hip hop culture is about going against the grain, not getting eaten like one.  Food for thought, all forms of life are susceptible to extinction.  KEEP HIP HOP ALIVE, DON'T KILL THE MUSIC.  PEACE!