I've never 'got'

i don't 'get' rap! I listened to dizzie rascal at glasto on TV and was amazed by how ordinary it was musically (though i guess the slam poetry aspect is clever -and dylan did it ). The backing singers carried the tiune and then only sporadically.

perhaps i'm too old being bought up on CSN+Y and other west coast marvells like the beatles

Rap, or the wider genre of Hip Hop is at a pitiful low at the moment. UK Hip Hop is really the bottom of the barrel.

The resurgence of Dre and his ilk basically gave birth to a bling and bitches movement that has been a long, ongoing death march for the credibility of the genre. I blame Eminem for this, albeit he is an unwitting motivator in this decline. As a white rapper he appealed to a far whiter audience than rap has had before. The same audience went in search of more music that they could relate to and this didn't involve tracks about living in places they didn't know about, being a colour that they weren't and living a life that they couldn't understand. Naturally where their money went, the trend of music followed and now rappers were making tracks about what they knew, bling and bitches. Inevitably the British contingent tried to follow suit but frankly we don't do this well and the end result was the ensuing rubbish that gets heralded as brilliant because frankly we don't have anything else.

Dizzee Rascal is good, but he isn't brilliant and suffers from the lack of investment, technology and production back up. I'll give him a lot of credit though, he broke the british mould where it was beginning to be difficult to identify artists by their sound.

The sad thing is, British Hip Hop used to be phenomenally good. If it was being released today, with the sort of backing current artists enjoy, it would be a major success. For UK artists, check out Elementalz - Brotherhood, Classic was the Day - Funky DL, What's Goin On - Black Twang, Where My Mind is At - Roots Manuva to name just a few.

US Hip Hop also has it's brilliance pre bling and bitches, even has moments of it now. Sage Francis, Gza (Especially Liquid Swords) Cypress Hill, Dr. Octagon (A frightening incarnation of Kool Keith, KRS1, EPMD.

Alas Hip Hop seems to have a tendancy to kill itself with it's own mainstream. From it's origins it rose up but Gangsta Rap took the lead and bought about a decline. A reformation of sorts came about, but again the products of excesses became the source material and inevitable decline. I imagine that those of us who prefer more substance to their style hope that the next reinvention isn't too far off.