Word up I see your point Xabiton. I do consider Dre hip-hop, and it is of a different flavor. I dunno how to explain it, it could be because of the use of samples. Alot (not all tho) of crunk sounds lacking in terms of samples, could be a good thing, could be a bad thing(to be fair its all in the evolution of hip-hop and what most people might term as hip-hop). And I'll be honest, since i am from the eastcoast I tend to have the belief that hip-hop was birthed somewhere in NYC (what borough tho is a totally different debate). And again its another argument to say whether or not hip-hop was birthed so much as it was another evolution or another level of older music (jazz, funk, dub, skat, etc.) just like how some people say that James Brown invented breakdancing. So I suppose when trying to figure what is and what isn't hip-hop I tend to try to compare it to the old school eastcoast brand and furthermore I compare it to how that has evolved through time within the eastcoast itself.
Lyrical content on the other hand is a different story. For me, I just believe real hip-hop music (battle MC'ing aside) should either tell a meaningful story in its lyrics, send out some sort of positive message, be thought provoking, or be about having fun. (And I know its arguable as to what one would term as fun). But alot of what gets played these days in popular media tends to be glorifying materialism: owning this, owning that etc. (they're like subliminal commercials telling people to spend their hard earned cash on $hit they don't need, so someone else can benefit from the listeners' ignorance). Its weird when I hear people say: "Jim Jones sux on the mic." But then people try to defend his presence in a song by saying: "oh but you gotta respect his hustle." It's basically like business management and marketing are becoming the new hip-hop elements.
Also is it just me or does it seem like Juelz Santana tends to not rhyme and just repeats the same words over again.
