3 top things you love about hip hop and 3 top 3 things you hate about hip hop.

[Afro Samurai]

3 things I love:

1) Black people getting rich.

2) So many different variety of rapper from the voice to the flow and subject matter they rap about (Canibus, Ice Cube, Outkast, etc. are all different from each other).

3) I'll agreed with Jay-z, that hip hop made ppl of all different races, nationalities, etc. come closer together.

3 things I hate:

1) The usage of the n-word (I still view nigga the same as nigger)

2) The disrespect toward females.

3) Sampling (it harder to make original beat then to sample a hot ass beat)

Now list your 

[Cage]

1. Lyrics: both deep and humorous.
2. Beats to Rhymes.
3. The pure genius and emotion of the culture that has been expressed through music over the decades.

1. Nigger this & Nigger that.
2. When curse words out number regular words.
3. The glorification of negative images and ideas (i.e. stop snitchin etc)

[TripleX]

1. The fact you can get rich (temporarily) without going through the proper channels, nobody cares what your gpa was, or where you went to school or what's on your resume.

2. Anything can be on the table for discussion, R&B is 95% about love and relationships.

3. It's always evolving and changing and you can get other brother's viewpoints from across the country instantly without knowing them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. I hate the fact that so much of it is completely disposable and that it's so hard to get beats and lyrics from the same song. Why can't Nas use Gucci Mane's producers?

2. People jump to conclusions about your character and/or level of intelligence when they know you listen to it.

3. It gets get blamed for everything. It's like women were never disrespected, no one ever cursed or used drugs and there was never any violence before 1975.

[Reginald Hudlin]

LOVE

1.
I love that it's a perfect example of how black creativity cannot be stopped.  no music classes in school? Kids made instruments out of turntables and put their own lyrics on top of the songs they were reinventing. 

2.
Ironically, the start of hip hop is steeped in stopping the violence.  Girls were tired of guys always banging, so they collectively decided to stop giving them some until they behaved right.  So they invented sound system, rhyme and dance battles instead.  Those kids should have gotten the Nobel Peace Prize. 

3.
Hip Hop is the first Black music that black people have made meaningful money.  Not just as performers, but as managers, producers, record label heads, music video directors, promotion men, filmmakers, etc.  Do other people eat off us?  Of course, but usually we get close to nothing. Hip hop has made many black millionaires.

4.
And a bonus track!  Hip hop is constantly evolving.  It's over 25 years old and shows no sign of slowing down as a style. It keeps absorbing whatever looks like the next trend and keeps selling and influencing global style. 

HATE

1.
No expression of black culture has promoted stupid ideas and bad behavior more than hip hop.  It's ironic, because even though jazz and soul music has always had a political side, the political side of hip hop is bigger and more influential.  But that is overshadowed by the ignorant side, which feels like Mt. Everest on some days. 

2.
For all the brilliant entepenuership of hip hop, very few people own anything.  They don't own their labels, they don't own their masters.  Instead, they trade that for cars that lose value the minute they are driven off the lot, overpriced jewelry from stores they don't own, and paying people who aren't really their friends and don't contribute to making money. 

3.
Too much cursing!  I want to play hot jams in my car, but I can't when the kids are in there. 

[Hypestyle]

Like:
1- economic empowerment with various disciplines- hip-hop inspired graphic arts, comic books, fashion designs, dance instruction, etc.

2- musical flexibility with other genres- rock, pop, R&B, jazz..

3- Radio/TV/market presence- I'm glad hip hop achieved parity with other popular music forms; hip-hop is solidly mainstream now.  Larry King interviews Jay-Z.  Rap sells breakfast cereal.  Neat.

Don't Like:
1- lack of thematic diversity.  The default voice in hip-hop is some version of the thug/gang-banger/pimp/hustler/dope-dealer (ladies: mob-mistress/golddigger/stripper); political/alternative rappers routinely get clowned for being 'player haters'..

2- fragmenting of fanbase. White indie rappers like El-P, Sage Francis, Aesop Rock, ICP, La Coka Nostra have cultivated careers with almost zero participation from black/latin hip-hop fans; besides Eminem & Paul Wall, "white rap" is almost a subgenre unto itself..

3- lack of prominent women in the game- it's not good enough for Nicki Minaj to be the 'only' voice in 2009/10, also the gangster-chick ethos is too pervasive..

3.5- severe lack of groups; the affiliated-posse/compilation albums don't count, IMO.. For years now almost every group fragments after one album, as everyone chases that solo cheddar... (and who's your DJ? anonymous turntablists spin at 3 out of 4 concerts now)..

[Wise Son]

Love
1 - The unique hip-hop sound. Just like when I hear a reggae bass line, I'm reminded of my early years living near Notting Hill, when I hear a hip-hop beat, or a flow, it just reacts with me in a way that no other style of music does, even if it's a song I love. I guess that's just the soul of hip-hop.

2 - The fact that it's been around long enough to build up a sense of history and growth. Jay-Z is someone I couldn't stand in his younger days, and his early stuff still doesn't move me, but the way he's matured, and started to become a bit more thoughtful, makes him so much more appealing to me, and is a great microcosm of what's happened in a lot of the genre. I hold out hope that even the people I can't stand now, like Souljah Boy or 50 Cent might grow into artists I can respect.

3 - International flavours. In the UK, Hip-hop took a long time to find a voice that worked for it. It was very insular, seeing other genres like dancehall and drum & bass as rivals, but in the last 10 years, it's incorporated all of those things to make a genuinely British sound that is getting the artistic and sales recognition that we never dreamed of decades back. This is not just here either, there are hip-hop acts in every country, and many of them have moved beyong imitating the US styles, and created something that truly represents their culture, and is being accepted in the US (look at Estelle, Sway, K'Naan, etc.).

Hates
1 - Nigga. I'll simply never accept it as anything other than a hurtful, self-hating term. I hope we move past it.

2 - The mass market. As hip-hop became the global musical force, it necessarily lost some of it's integrity. Politics, positivity and respect are harder to market than stereotypes, tits, ass, drugs and crime. That said, I feel we're reaching a point where the positive is starting to find new ways to come through.

3 - Lack of progress. There are some places hip-hop needs to move forward on, which have been so stubborn - sexism, homophobia, and probably the largest issue - how to define black masculinity in a healthy way.