What happened to real music

 
Unfortunately, I’m a 90’s baby so that means all the music before and briefly after that was undoubtedly considered ‘real’ music. I’m not an expert on rap or any genre, but I can honestly say that I enjoy it.  Mind you, I like REAL music. Not the current mainstream garbage that is constantly played on the radio. I’m not saying that if you were born after the 90’s then you don’t know what good music is, what I’m saying is music started it’s drastic decline around that time.
Back in the late 80’s and early 90’s rap music was considered a cultural sensation, it was rebellion, struggle, pain, and poverty through lyrics. Each song conveyed a message. I’m not going to be a hypocrite and say all rap music was meaningful; a conservative estimate would be 25 percent of it just jammed. Whatever it was, it was relatable and thought provoking.
Rap, Hip-hop and R&B have always been a part of my culture. I remember my mom jamming Lauryn Hill and Tupac while cooking and washing dishes when I was little.  I grew up on lyrics like “Let’s love ourselves, then we can’t fail to make a better situation. Tomorrow, our seeds will grow all we need is dedication.” and “Some say the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. I say the darker the flesh, then the deeper the roots.”
Rap in its early years was one of the most influential genres of music, causing the lyrics to be under constant inspection by the media. Its affect on society had cultural significance.
Nowadays, it’s just a commercialized joke on our youth and an even bigger joke on the African-American race. It degrades our women, and gives our youth a false insight on life. It promotes a superficial life style leaving our youth with false expectations and generic life goals, its message is completely false and we’re still its main supporters.
You can turn on any radio station and hear these ‘rappers’ are drastically declining and are struggling to stay relevant.
Instead of portraying the truth to the people who look up to them, or rapping about meaningful experiences to lead our generation, we hear lies about lives they’ve never lived over auto-tuned nonsense.
Songs like Public Enemy’s “Rebel Without A Pause”, Queen Latifah’s “U.N.I.T.Y.” Nas’ “The World Is Yours” and Tupac’s “Brenda’s Baby” were unpretentious, true and relatable.
I can’t think of any meaningful song that Lil Wayne or any of the members of Young Money produced, ever. None of their music encourages me to overcome a situation or better myself. The message I’m constantly getting from rap nowadays is to become a ‘college dropout’ like Kanye and then start stripping because according to Juicy J, “Bandz a Make her Dance.”
Social responsibility is an ethical belief or theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to benefit society. We also as consumers have the same responsibility. If we weren’t buying it they wouldn’t be producing it. By listening to garbage music, we are perpetuating its existence. 
With each new generation, celebrities and rappers are growing prominent in the media and in our youth. They are public figures, and as a public figure, celebrity or whatever, they are influential.  This means they have a responsibility to our generation to contribute something … Anything! We, as college students, are held responsible for our actions and the examples we set for others. Why aren’t they?
Do me a favor, today blow the dust off of your old rap, hip-hop and R&B tracks and jam some of them. Listen to the message they convey and compare them to today’s ‘rap, hip-hop, and R&B’. I promise it’ll blow your mind … Your welcome.