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I need to thank XXL for the opportunity to come here and get my grind on at their website. Thanks to all the readers that have stopped by to show their support (and disdain). I takes the good with the bad. What doesn't kill you only makes you hardbody, blah, blah, blah. The
one thing that I learned from my short time here is that hip-hop is far from dead. It's been written off in so many publications and on so many different levels of media I was almost about to believe the hype. Instead what I saw here at XXL is what has kept hip-hop culture
alive from the very beginning. It's not the artists that are the lifeblood of hip-hop, but the masses that demand the art.

You people continue to demand to be challenged, entertained, enlightened and empowered by hip-hop. You demand music with beats and rhythms that are creative and new. You demand songs with lyrical content that causes you to take out notepads to help you memorize the metaphors and catchphrases. If it wasn't for your love and passion for this thing, I might be here talking about country western music or, God forbid, techno. So the next direction that hip-hop takes as an art won't be decided by the artists, but by the people that practice it on an everyday basis. The people that do it when the cameras aren't on them and when there isn't a record deal in the offering.

It's up to you to demand more hip-hop representation from outlets like BET, MTV and VH1. If they don't want to represent your music, you should turn them the fuck off. Why are you supporting their advertisers when they aren't giving you the programming that's really important to you? These stations think that hip-hop is dead because their viewers have become cowards who are too scared to demand hip-hop programming. A video show gets cancelled and there isn't a peep from the viewership about the cancellation?!? The 70's babies would not have let shit go down like that. We made our claims known and shows like Rap City and Yo! MTV Raps responded to us. It's now time for you 80's babies to step up to the plate and make your voices heard.

Hip-hop can still be a force for good, but only if it remains in the hands of the bravehearts and the courageous. If the only fans of hip-hop that remain are undereducated cowards and fools, then hip-hop is truly dead and I will have to start downloading some punk rock bands in order to hear some real hardbody rebel music. You people are gonna have to make the call. I'm outta here.

One hundred

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