Top 10 worst trends in hip-hop

What a strange couple days in hip-hop. On Friday, Jim Jones hacked into Tru Life’s MySpace page. (Really? The Dirt Angel is an e-gangsta now?) Apparently rap battles no longer take place in ciphers or on the radio or on wax. Now rappers air out their dirty laundry on social networking sites. All you rap nerds should be happy, since the line between reality and the Internet has officially been erased. The war is over, and the web won. Feel free to let loose with cyber talk around hot girls, post comments on blogs at 11:23 pm on a Friday night, freestyle endlessly about your MySpace friends, and generally embrace your geek leanings. Hip-hop is yours, my friends.

Tuesday night a fiasco with the RIAA landed former XXL blogger DJ Drama in jail. That’s right—jail. Drama spent the night in the slammer, and is now up on racketeering charges, essentially for being the hottest mixtape DJ out and promoting the crap out of a bunch of major label artists. Meanwhile, Fox News is having a freakin’ field day with the story. The network is clearly incapable of figuring out the difference between mixtapes and bootlegged CDs (along with the Recording Industry Association of America, whose job it is to represent, um, the music industry). In typical fashion, Fox is determined to bring a sensational, get-super-scared-now element to their coverage, pointing out that though there were no weapons or drugs found, these types of raids often turn up contraband. Apparently things that didn’t happen—but could have—now qualify as news. 

All of this is enough to make a girl grumpy. In that spirit, allow me to share my top ten pet peeves with hip-hop right now.

The phrase BAALLLLINN! For obvious reasons.

Print hoodies. Actually, some print hoodies are kinda hot. For instance, the ones that Jay wore on BET on the 106 & Jay spot were pretty nice. But I’ve seen some dudes around my neighborhood on some serious bullshit. General rule of thumb: if the graphics on your sweatshirt look like they could have been jacked from a sixty year-old grandmother’s tacky sweater set, you might want to rethink rocking it.

Groupie tell-all books. One word: scandalous.

E-thugs. Random threats of violence from the comfort of your mother’s basement? Spewing a bunch of bile you would never say out loud IN CAPS? Cussing for the sake of cussing? So 2006.

Making it rain. Tossing handfuls of cash into the air for no apparent reason = an insult to poor folks everywhere.

The Girl Record. Please give that thug pillow talk a rest. We don’t believe you, you need more people.

New jacks taking shots at legends. Jeezy, Lil’ Wayne, I’m talking to you.

The hustler ethos. In the words of Cube: “Everybody’s hustling, ain’t nobody rapping.”

Directional dance songs. Please stop telling me what to do and let me dance already.

Random wannabe celebs nose-diving into the rap mix. I see you, Brooke Hogan.

Feel free to add to my list.