Hip Hop is Dead

Last year, hip hop artist sold 59.1 million albums, country albums sold 75 million units and heavy metal sold 61.6 million. Sales are down 33% from 2006 and 43% from 2000, twice the decline for the record industry overall, according to NielsenSoundScan. Hip Hops top selling artist, Jay-Z, Ludacris, Snoop Dogg, Diddy and Nas have all released albums in the past year but only Jay-Z and and Ludacris have sold at least 1 million copies in the USA, and only Diddy is still on the charts.

Recent sales by rap star Mims reflect the problems facing the industry. His single This Is Why I'm Hot has done well this year, selling 634,000 downloads and 1.9 million ring tones, the 2007 leader in ring tones so far. But the album has only sold 231,000 copies. Ring tones and downloads of singles don't pay as well as albums sales.

The USA Today article goes into various reasons for the decline in record sales including over commercialization,  violent lyrics and the lack of quality music. It also touches on the fact that white kids no longer see any meaning in the art form.

"The public has made a choice," KRS-One says. "They're saying, 'We do not want the nonsense that we see and hear on radio, and we are not putting our money there.' Rap music is being boycotted by the American public because of the images that we are putting forward."

Whatever the reason is for this decline in album sales, it is bad news for a lot of black artist and entrepreneurs who have made their fortune selling Hip Hop.