Country vs Hip Hop

Country music and hip hop have both changed a great deal over the last two decades. I think that it would be a pretty safe bet to say that those who were the inovators in the genres would have a hard time recognizing their genre today. I will start by talking about hio hop because it is the younger of the two and I believe that it's evolution into what it has become came much more quickly than country's transformation. Most people usually point to the Sugar Hill Gang as the first hip hop group. Their single "Rappers Delight" was released in 1979 and the style quickly caught on. My first memories of hip hop music featured lyrics that were more political and focused on discrimination and living poor. The first time I heard NWA's straight out of compton blew my mind. While it was still focused on the same themes as previous rap albums is was more raw and angry. And they swore a lot which I thought was cool. From there rap seemed to morph into more of a party music that focused mostly on getting drunk or stoned. And then it began to get very misogynistic. Today it seems like the only thing that main stream rap cares about is money, girls and money. While there are still a lot of great hip hop artists that rap about political issues they certainly are not the artists that are getting radio play.

Country music's evolution seems to have happened over a longer period of time. Of course this might be because I have not been alive for the majority of country music's life span like I have been for hip hop's. I remember listening to Johnny Cash, Hank Williams and Willie Nelson with my uncle when I was young and thinking that it was great. And then country music started to change. I think that country started to change because the new artists were starting to become influenced by other genres than just other country. It started to become more mainstream. Today many country artists are played on several different formats, not just country stations. I think that this is happening with all genres of music though. It has all become so homoginized that there is little difference between country and rock and pop music making it easy for the masses to injest it. I'm pretty sure ole' Hank would not be happy.

Heres some Hank III. A bit of a throw back.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vd7sM0iiAUs&feature=related