no comment

Lil' Wayne is the most overrated "artist" I can think of right now.

And...it's erroneous to refer to his music as hip hop. He makes club tunes for strippers - adds nothing to the cause or the culture. He's an embarassment, really.

If you haven't heard his stuff, trust me, you're not missing anything. He's a joke.

The reason for the correlation between sales and good reviews from publications that specialize in "other" music is that those publications generally don't review hip hop records unless they're highly-anticipated. Those publications are largely unwilling to take a chance on hip hop unless it proves to be hip POP, probably for the simple reason that there are so many convoluted views about what is good hip hop, but measuring the success of a hip POP joint is simple - is it filling up the dancefloors? If not, then forget about it.

And finally - I question your definition of "obscure." Fleet Foxes? Sub Pop is pretty well-known on at least two continents, FYI.

I cosign with Nic's statement. I guess I'm showing my age at a tender 25, but what is the big freakin' deal about Lil' Wayne?!? 95% of what he says is unintelligible and the other 5% that I can discern is utter nonsense.

I should put the caveat out there that I can only get through about a minute of any of his songs before I have to turn the radio station, or risk scratching my eyes out in disgust. I mean really. Isn't his last song about a lollipop? My, my, my. Look how far we've come.

Don't get me wrong, Tupac and Biggie were egomaniac misogynists, but at least they were good story tellers for the most part and could put together a decent song. They are probably rolling over in their graves from the mess that is coming out and coined "hip hop" nowadays. It seems like all you need now is a good beat, a hook with T-Payne, and some gibberish, and you are well on your way to selling tons of records.

Can we rewind to the eighties please. When there were actually "artists" producing "art"?