Southern Hip-Hop's Impending Death

I’m no weatherman (whaddup Cage), but I can see quite the storm front developing over the southern region of America when it comes to Hip-Hop. Yes for a while it’s been hot, uber hot, in fact. Atlanta was named the new capitol of the culture for a minute, but now, in mid-2007, things are changing and the only people the artists will have to blame for it is themselves.

Now this isn’t going to be some long diatribe about southern Hip-Hop not having the lyrical quality that the Hip-Hop from other areas has. For the purposes of this discussion lyrical content is actually irrelevant as what I'm looking at is the artists as businesspeople, and that’s where the south his falling behind. In the past two weeks a writer I do a lot of work with (whaddup Bear) and I have had a number of interviews scheduled with rappers who have become high profile over the past few years thanks to the southern explosion. In past years working with southern artists was great. They were hungry and eager to talk. In 2007, however, a good number of popular southern rappers have become complacent, feeling their spot at the top is secure and nothing can take them down. Case in point, my buddy and I had four of our high profile southern rappers cancel their entire press days. That’s right, FOUR!

What’s the big deal with this, you might ask. Well, when an artist cancels their press day it does a couple of things. First it means less people will know when their album is coming out. Second, it sours the press on the artist. We set aside a day and a time and sometimes even a magazine or a website for an artist and when they decide they have better things to do (which in reality they don’t, because this is their career we’re talking about) they mess up not only a large chunk of our day, but also the plans of various publications and websites. A lot of artists don’t realize when they miss a press day they can oftentimes miss out on a magazine cover because magazines are on deadlines and can’t be expected to deal with an artist who feels it’s too much of a bother to get on the phone for fifteen minutes even though it was scheduled for them a week in advance.

In the south this seems to be happening a lot. Numerous rappers who were virtual nobodies three years ago are suddenly “too busy” to do the press days their labels set up for them (and in the case of one rapper it was two press days). Too busy? Really? What could possibly be more important than promoting your album? Sometimes it really isn’t the labels’ fault when albums are released and nobody buys them. When an artist skips a press day weak sales are, in large part, the artist’s fault.

There are a handful of prominent southern rappers who are still completely on point with their business. Not so ironically most of them were already big well before the southern explosion of a few years ago. Guys like Ludacris, Bubba Sparxxx and Bonecrusher are all excellent interviews who are always on time and very courteous. If people don’t think writers notice this, well, this is me telling you we do! For the most part, however, southern rappers have become cocky, and not in the braggadocios rhyme kind of way.

My prediction is that of the current crop of popular southern artists there will only be a few left standing after all is said and done, namely the three I just mentioned along with the likes of Cee-Lo and Lil’ Wayne (sorry Outkast, ATLiens will always be in my top 10, but I haven’t felt much of what you’ve been doing since Aquemini), but when it comes to all the artists who just became hot and have no real skills (OK, fine, I mentioned skills. Sue me), the love affair this country has with them is going to be coming to an end, and quickly.

So for those of you who enjoy hearing southern Hip-Hop I’m sorry to say your passion may be cut short and the only people you’ll have to blame are the ones on your CD covers. Love em or hate em, the new attitude that’s emanating from southern Hip-Hop artists is going to be what quickly shifts the genre to another location.