...which begs the question; what do Hiphop consumers buy the records for, the music or the lyrics? If it's the lyrics, then how important is it to "make beats"? Maybe you'd be better off pumping out rap lyrics. Seriously, which would do better in the marketplace, a great (hiphop) beat (and background) and lousy (hiphop) lyrics or the opposite? Do the two ever come together (an example, please)? I don't hate all hiphop music, just the "put your hands in the air...." type. Of course, I feel the same way about 80% of Rock and 95% of Country. But that's just personal taste on my part, it doesn't mean that there aren't some "sweet spots" in all of those genre's. It's just that I have to wade through too much s--t to get to them. There is not a single genre of music that doesn't have at least a couple of songs that I absolutely love (well maybe not schlager ), but in almost every case it's not usually representative of the genre and is classified that way because of who's performing it. As much as I might love and admire say McCoy Tyner, I also love Willie Nelson, right down to his pot-smoking, womanizing image (it's like and honesty that says, "hey, I am who I am").

I have no idea where I was going with this (old age does that ) so I'll turn it back to the HipHop experts. Diki, you there?

chas