'Say What? Say What? Say What? Say What? Kick that Muthafuckinggangster Shit'

It seems to me that the above mentality no longer exists in Hip Hop as much as it should, today peeps are kicking it for money rather than for the streets.

This week I’m talking about the topic everyone is talking about 'Keeping It Real' especially since artists like Puffy and Jay Z etc are making huge sales from that ‘fake shit’ style. No longer does the Phrase 'Keeping It Real' refer to 'Keeping It Real' as it was two years ago. What this means is that no longer are peeps saying 'Keeping It Real' when peoples are rapping about shooting peeps and such associated shit when they ain’t never been involved in such activities.

Today 'Keeping It Real' refers to staying true to Hip Hop in its original form, the streets, peeps today who ain’t keeping it real basically are the ones that change up there style to appeal to the white masses, ie Go commercial, rap and bullshit, dance rap, whatever you want to call it. The thing that gets to me is that during the year 1998 Rap and Hip Hop outsold every other type of music including Country. For 8 months of the year there were at least 3 Hip Hop albums in the Billboard Top 10!!

However 70% of all sales come from the 'White population' of the USA. Just to ensure I don’t get hundreds of mails this week telling me I’m racist, im’ma break down the 'White population'. The 'White population' basically are the people that no nothing about Hip Hop, Nothing about the culture, Nothing about the life, all they know is MTV, CD's and listening to Rap makes the ‘COOL’. Like DJ Premier says 'Y’all muthafuckaz don’t really know what this Hip Hop shit is all about'. However that said if your reading this you cannot and should not ever be classified as the 'White population' simple because you have the knowledge to read my shit :-). But on the real peeps who come to One Million know what Da Real Hip Hop really is!!

...Getting back to keeping it real. Gangster's DJ Premier on 'Royalty' sum up what is currently going on 'Y’all letting the industry control the rules of the Hip Hop world that we made? Ya niggaz need to knock that shit off, y’all need to knock that shit off that’s some greedy ass fake bullshit'

Because of the huge market that has been opened up by the likes of Jay Z and Puff Daddy with their ‘sell out styles’, many artists have now decided to change up their style and flip to this 'John Blaze' shit, which is really just commercial rap. Just look at the artists that have flipped for the Ca$h Nas, Az, Noreaga, Puff Daddy, Mase, Jay Z just to name a few. All these artists had credibility at one time or another as the hardcore of Hip Hop, however they have now lost there credibility in the underground as true Hip Hop exponents, while they reap in the cash. Big Noyd sums it up 'Niggaz ain’t really kepping it real'

Because of this I feel that Hip Hop will be facing some of its hardest times in terms of having real Hip Hop coming out. More and more artists are converting their styles to this dance shit to earn money, and can we really blame them? (They are just trying to earn as much as they possibly can). We have Nas, Foxy Brown, Nature, Noreaga etc all coming out again this year with albums that aren’t really true to Hip Hop, so do we really have any hope??????

Well I’m here to you there is hope still. Mobb Deep will always keep it real as P Double E of the Mobb sums it up on the full version of 'Raw'... 'What I gotta sound like Mase to get a tour? Fuck that man I gotta be myself!' Big Noyd, Raekwon, Inspektah Deck, Cormega, Tragedy Khadafi and others that are coming out this year will also all keep it real. Hopefully some of these artists can go multi platinum and as a result, others will hopefully start to try to emulate their success and hopefully take Hip Hop back to its prime days of say 1994-96, with joints like '6 Feet Deep', '36 Chambers', 'Illmatic', 'The Infamous', 'Cuban linxs', 'Liquid Swords' and 'Hell On Earth'

This is where Hip Hop sites on the web come into play in promoting Hip Hop. show your support for Hip Hop by visiting every site in 1Millions links page and then support the artist featured there.

What do you think on this issue?

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Peace... Nitto