One of the most popular parlor games for hip-hop heads these days is to discuss the current state of hip-hop. “Hip Hop is dead” goes the chorus, or “Rap has been dead since 2001.”  Everybody has their own opinion or their own theory on where hip-hop is at.  But no one has really backed it up with any kind of numbers – until now.

My man Ivan over at Hip Hop Is Read has taken some base data and actually flipped the info to quantify his theory that that hip-hop is in a state of serious decline.

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The summary is pretty ill.  It pretty clearly shows that in the last 5 years, the raw number of albums released may have gone up, but the number of albums that heads actually thought were dope has gone down.

In a time where labels are not spending time investing in artists and the industry is hemorrhaging money, this is the kind of discussion that needs to take place.  As they say in the management world, if you can’t track it, you can’t correct it.

A post worth reading.  Respect, Ivan.