Music producer, manager and Canadian Idol judge Farley Flex knows how much energy goes into launching an artist or running a business - and can imagine how much is diverted from making music when someone tries to do all three.
These days, he told CTV's "eTalk" in a recent interview, more rappers than ever are using methods outside their rhyming skills to gain pop culture notoriety.
"People... are trying to evolve into business entities," he said, noting the plethora of clothing lines, and other goods boasting the names of popular artists (such as Jay-Z, 50 Cent and P. Diddy) and the record labels they run.
MCs trying to do it all
Gone is the day of behind-the-scenes hip hop promoters-turned-moguls like Def Jam Records founder Russell Simmons, says Flex. Now we're facing a new era of rappers that try to do it all, and music that suffers as a consequence.
"From a qualitative standpoint... hip hop is not at its best," said Flex, who made his name promoting Canadian hip hop in the early days, managing the career of legendary rapper Maestro and helping launch Flow FM, Canada's first hip hop radio station.
"Hip hop is at a low in terms of its creativity and its use of the English language to send messages that provoke thought and provoke political awareness and provoke the upliftment of black people."
Talented artists playing catch-up
This leaves some amazingly talented artists out in the cold and without record labels, while those with cross-platform marketing reap all the acclaim.
"50 may not go down in history as the best lyricist as compared to someone like Rakim or Big Daddy Cane or Maestro. People like that... became prominent because they had a certain poetic genius."
50 Cent pushing Vitamin Water
And while 50 Cent probably didn't spend much time developing his recently released Vitamin Water, signing off on his empire of products certainly takes a certain amount of time and energy.
During the same May week that 50 was busy making $400 million on the sale of Vitamin Water's parent company, Glaceau, he announced his highly anticipated third album would be released in September instead of the original release date in June. Priorities, anyone?
It's like comedian Chris Rock said in the latest issue of "Rolling Stone Magazine," "nobody's into being a musician. Everybody's getting their mogul on."
The upside, says Flex, is that hip hop has plenty of time to recover from its current woes because it's not going anywhere anytime soon.
"Hip hop culture will always be around because it's a lifestyle that people embrace."
Do you agree, has the quality dropped now that stars are more focused on branding than rhyming?
