So, I was watching “The MC: Why We Do It” and KRS-One made this great observation, which I thought I would share. We all know how KRS breaks hip hop down to a science (which I think is a bad and a good thing, but I’ll probably save that for the next blog), and he mentioned that right now (which at the time was 2005, but still applies today) we are in an “ice age” in hip hop. What he meant by that was artists’ fascination with jewelry, “ice”, “bling bling”, etc. and the wealth that they were able to gain from being musicians. However, he said that like an ice age, once everything has frozen over and the ice has done all it can do, it will start to melt and the land (in this case the music) will begin to flourish once again.

I thought this was a really dope concept and that we are starting to finally see the end of this ice age. Even before the economic downturn, record sales had been slipping year after year. Artists already had a hard enough time breaking even when it came to record sales, and they were selling millions! Now, the appeal of making money in the music business isn’t what it used to be. Some people still attempt to make it big with a dance song, but for the most part they are here today, gone tomorrow and never see any real profit or benefit from entering the business. With only a handful of well-known, already established artists being able to still sell millions of records, the popularity of becoming an artist may soon fade.

What this means is that only those with a true passion for making music (and in the case of hip hop MCing, DJing, etc.) will attempt to break into the industry. The sells aren’t their main focus. The money isn’t their main focus. They just love the music and are fortunate enough that they can make a profit by doing it, as well. We are beginning to see this turn now with artists like Kid Cudi (who did actually fair pretty well the first couple weeks, but wasn’t able to really carry that momentum), Wale, B.O.B., and Slaughterhouse. We know that none of these artists (and plenty of others not named here) will go double or triple platinum anytime soon, but they have enough passion and enough of a following to continue to make music. Slaughterhouse formed a four-member alliance at the worst economic time possible. It’s clear the move wasn’t about money. It was about creating good music and becoming better artists.

This year has been an excellent one in terms of both albums that have dropped and albums being worked on. We have seen people go back to the basics. Raekwon just dropped OB4CL II, Jay-Z just dropped the third installment of Blueprint, Eminem is finally back in the picture (whether you were really feeling the album or not, it’s clear he is still one of the elite artists), Mos Def finally made his return, Kid Cudi made an extremely artistic album, Dead Prez made their way back into the picture, Slaughterhouse put the attention back on lyrics, Red and Mef came back together, and Jadakiss dropped another one. Not only that, but we have Wale still to come this year, Drake has his album coming next year (not including the mixtape that he somehow got into retail stores) along with B.O.B. Big Boi is supposed to be dropping sometime soon, we keep hearing that Andre 3000 is in the studio again, and that we may even see the duo come out with another album in the near future (fingers crossed). And let’s not forget that J. Cole who is slated to be the first artists (not including Jay) to drop an album with the Roc Nation logo.

We have all of this old and new blood making strides to bring it back to the essence. We saw many upsides for hip hop in 2009, but we still have a way to go. It’s not just the artists, but the fans responsibility as well to ensure that the music we love is gaining exposure. Let’s pull the sun closer to this ice so that we can get some new vegetation sooner than we think.

Let me know what you think. Will the ice age ever die? Are we coming out of it? Leave your comments and you can always email at straightouttahiphop@gmail.com.

Peace.