Originally Posted by altsounds 
Hip Hop is far from dead my friend.
Help me out: name some contemporary Hip-Hop that is as exciting and as relevant as Boogie Down Prod., Eric B and Rakim, etc, were back in the day?
I mean, there's a lot of good Rap - Ghostface, DOOM, Ghostface and DOOM together, etc. (lol) - but Hip-Hop pretty much died with the live Hip-Hop DJ (so much so that it's more accurate to call them 'turntablists' now).
I'm not complaining, though. Late-80s sampling ('It takes a nation...', 'Paul's Boutique', etc.) was amazing and the beats The Neptunes did on the last Clipse album were also pretty out there.
Styles die and are reborn as something new (Blues to Rock 'n' Roll to Psychedelia to Metal to Punk to No-Wave...).
C'est la vie dans la musique...