BET's Rap City: DEAD!

Lovers of real hip-hop, REJOICE!
After 19 years on the air with steadily declining standards, BET has pulled the plug on the shuck-and-jive minstrel extravaganza known as "Rap City".

How bad are things in hip-hop? So bad that a 1-hr video/interview show can't get ratings on BET. It's no coincidence that the rise of the internet music scene is coinciding with the death of record sales and video shows (R.I.P. to TRL this year as well). Yup...hip-hop is dead, but Easter is right around the corner. I think the kids are waking up and finally understanding that there's much more available than the bullshit that Viacom and Clear Channel want to shove down their throats.

Now that I think about it, considering that MTV's TRL is also being flushed...maybe it's not just hip-hop that's dead, but the concept of pop music in general. Let's face it, in 2008, Lil' Wayne and Ne-Yo have the exact same core audience as Paramore and Jesse McCartney. Now that it's so much easier for any and every artist to reach a mass audience via the internet, maybe it just isn't possible to put together a 1-2 hour long block of songs that tens of millions of people are going to agree on anymore.

Video killed the radio star. Myspace killed the video star.