Is hip-hop dead?

"Recently, proclamations of hip hop's death have flooded the airwaves. The issue may have reached its boiling point in Nas's 2006 album Hip Hop is Dead. The album is driven by nostalgia for a mythically pure moment in hip hop's history, when the music was driven by artistic passion instead of base commercialism. In the course of this same album, however, Nas himself brags about making money for his record label. These and similar contradictions are emblematic of the complex forces underlying the dialogue that keeps hip hop a vital element of our culture. Is Hip Hop Dead? seeks to illustrate the origins of hip hop nostalgia and examine how artists maintain control of their music and culture in the face of corporate record companies, government censorship, and the standardization of the rap image."--Jacket.