Everybody loves to say how much they love Bill Clinton, how he's the first black president and so on and so forth. But I learned something about him last night (on Bill Moyers) that might explain why he is inadvertently responsible for the decline of hip hop. Check it out. In 1996, Congress passed a bill that allowed huge record conglomerations like Clear Channel to own several radio stations in any given market, thereby killing local radio stations and beloved hip hop mixshows like the Stretch and Bobbito show and stuff like that. Bill Clinton signed this bill into LAW.
Have you ever noticed how in 1997, hip hop got a whole lot worse? With Puffy and the shiny suits and the same records over and over again. Hip hop went from fun and creative to serious and blinged out and materialistic. It's because this country went from having thriving regional radio stations that reflected an area's heart and soul, to the same syndicated playlists stretching from New York to LA and all the regions in between.
So that's why I say that Bill Clinton killed hip hop.
And then you have Ronald Reagan who made things so miserable in the South Bronx, that it actually gave birth to hip hop culture. Go figure...
