This is, however, a thread about the demise of said genre. Or, me making those bells toll ever louder.
For anyone who is cognizant of the history of the genre, from its birth as improvised (or written or memorized) poetry interlaced with vinyl theatrics on a turntable to its golden age in the '80s and '90s (so many stars - Grandmaster Flash, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, the Disposable Heroes, Tupac, Notorious, etc.) to its last gasp in the early years of this millenium under Eminem (and the overhyping of several insignificant entities by critics bamboozled by Christgau's continued petal-throwin' of anything African) to its current state (wherein a guy like the "multitalented"Justin Bieber is hired to air dirty laundry), ye know what I mean.
The anger that fueled most of the pioneers of the genre has been spent (amplified with the death of men like Tupac), and hiphop itself has become a dump for anything ordinarily ludicrous in other genres for the sake of the almighty dollar.
Inasmuch as the genre has become an engine for worthless transient pap (and as we well know, this genre more than other depends on quality materiel to keep on surviving), I for one announce the death of hiphop and all it stood for; it was inevitable as soon as civil rights became a non-issue and a generation of less motivated hangers-on crawled from out of the woodwork.