"Hip hop is Dead"

In 2006, rapper Nas released an album called "Hip Hop is Dead". In the song named after the album, Nas has a few points that especially pertain to our class discussions of advertisement, particularly in art. Here are a few portions that I think are relevant:

What influenced my raps? Stick ups and killings
Kidnappings, project buildings, drug dealings
Criticize that, why is that?
Cuz Nas rap is compared to legitimized crap
Cuz we love to talk on a** we gettin'
Most intellectuals will only half listen...

Everybody sound the same, commercialize the game
Reminiscin' when it wasn't all business
If it got where it started
So we all gather here for the dearly departed

From "Beat Street" to commercials on Mickey D's
From gold cables to Jacobs
From plain facials to Botox and face lifts

For the rest of the lyrics, click here, my source.

When you listen to hip hop or rap today, what do you hear in the lyrics? Like Nas says, most rap is "legitimized crap," just a 3 or 4 minute report on cars, prostitutes, and jewelry, a far cry from low-income and sometimes gang related raps that started the hip-hop movement in the 70s.

In class, we read an article about how art has become advertising and advertising has become art. Music, a form a of art, is absolutely a reflection of that. I'm not saying that all music is all advertising. But I do think that a lot of over commercialized pop and hip hop music is focused around materialism. Does this mean that America is materialistic, if some of our most popular (but maybe not artistic) music is?