Ok so check this out. I was bouncing this theory off of my wife and I think there's something to it. Here I will attempt to apply the scientific method.
Question: What/Who could help Hip-Hop stave off it's slip into the abyss of gimmicky hooks w/ dances and questionable repetitive beats?
Background: Collaboration, brain storming and comradery have always affected Hip-Hop in a very positive way. The late 80's and 1992 to ~1996 where great era's in hip-hop and those were times were maybe 1 or 2 major riffs would happen (BDP vs Juice Crew was about who started hip-hop!). Overall there were alot of working together for the common good of making good music and even the disses were about good music.
Hypothesis: Twitter is the savoir of modern hip-hop.
Experimentation: Happening right now in front of you. Log on to twitter, follow your favorite artist, see who interacts with who.
Analysis: In what world without Twitter will you find Talib Kweli talking to Ludacris, who's talking to ?uestlove, who's talking to Diddy, who's talking to Q-Tip & Jay Electronica and this continues on and on. In this age of instant communications on one hub in front of the public instead of chance meetings at random clubs in random towns, we actually see the seeds of collaboration starting to grow, and we all have front row seats to witness it. Am I saying we're going to see Ludacris, Jean Grae & Charles Hamilton over an Alchemist beat with DJ Green Lantern on the scratches? Probably not BUT the spirit is in the air and I believe that Twitter can provide opprotunities of collaboration that were nigh impossible pre-Tweet.
Best example: Diddy aka Puff Daddy, just last night (3/17), was pushing all hip-hop artist he knows including Big Pooh from Little Brother to tweet Talib Kweli abut doing another Blackstar album! He also tweeted Kweli himself. Now how would that even be possible without twitter?!?!
See kids? Science CAN be fun regardless of what the religious right says!
From my Tuesday post at www.allthatsfresh.com
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