Hip-hop is no longer cooler than me

It's an amorphous thing, to chronicle hip-hop's decline, but I trace its genesis to the sound every fan loved: Atlanta at the turn of the century, repelling what New York and Los Angeles did, finding its own way with krunked-out beats and slurred lyrics. Atlanta (Outkast and Ludacris mostly) begat the Cash Money Millionaires of New Orleans (think Juvenile and "Back That Ass Up." The music then evolved, except that T.I. and his ilk in Atlanta and Lil Wayne and his in N'Awlins were neither as clever with the rhymes as Ludacris nor as adept in the production as Outkast. A sound that was already simpler than what Dre out west or Puffy out east would have allowed became lazy, less crisp, and the lyrics were all that much harder to decipher, hiding behind drawls and weighed down by bling. Then the music shifted again in, roughly, 2006. Things got so dire that Nas, one of the great New York rappers, released an album called "Hip-Hop Is Dead." The new sound's beats were as simple as the rhymes were unnecessary. And into this void, exemplifying it, stepped Soulja Boy. His hit is a three-note wonder seemingly played on a xylophone. Now, Dr. Dre used to spend up to 100 hours perfecting a beat. Soulja Boy? He sees what's hot at the nearest elementary school and calls it his own.

In his defense, Soulja Boy operates in the "snap music" subgenre of hip-hop, which will never be accused of musical complexity. Snap music is big because radio stations tired of the sluggish tempos coming out of Houston last year. (A shame. I love the Houston stuff.) The difference here is that the Houston guys -- Slim Thug, Paul Wall, Mike Jones et al. -- could rap; the near stasis of the backdrop only brightened the glare of the M.C.'s spotlight. Here's Paul Wall, from his 2005 hit, "Grillz," an ode to the diamond or gold mouthpieces rappers love(d) to wear: "I got da wrist wear and neck wear dats captivatin'/ but it's my smile dat's got these onlookers spectatin'/ My mouth piece simply certified a total package/ Open up my mouth and you see mo carrots than a salad/ My teeth are mind blowin, givin everybody chillz/ Call me George Foreman cuz I'm selling everybody grillz."

Now that's funny. It just is. And it's an example of hip-hop going light but not going easy on the lyrics. That took Paul Wall some time to think up. By contrast, here is "(Crank Dat) Soulja Boy": "I'm bouncin' on my toe/ watch me take to Areab/ And he gonna take it up for sho/ Haterz want to be me/ Soulja Boy, I'm the man/ They be looking at my neck/ Sayin' is them rubber bands man?" No. 1: He's not trying to be funny. It just sounds that way. No. 2, and this is kind of obvious: He's not really trying at all. I mean, listen to the song and it actually sounds like he's a first-time freestyler, the rhythm is so off. It's as if even he can't wait to get back to the chorus. And the chorus! My God, the chorus. "Superman dat ho" is a sexual euphemism that's not really all that illicit, as most sexual euphemisms go. It's just ... infantile.

The most depressing part is that Soulja Boy is not alone in lacking creativity. Webbie, Lil' Phat and Lil Boosie sometimes don't know what else to say, so they literally start spelling words. Lil Wayne, under the influence of a talk box, has made a hit out of saying "lollypop" over and over. And Fat Joe's latest, "I Won't Tell," succeeds only because J. Holiday has a good voice -- which is still better than Fat Joe's 2004 hit "Lean Back," a dance song for people who don't dance, who just, you guessed it, lean back. These three tracks -- Webbie's, Lil Wayne's and Fat Joe's -- currently reside on Billboard's Top 50 hip-hop list, and Lil Wayne's song is No. 1.

Look, I'm not confused or annoyed by hip-hop, like older rock fans are by, say, Fall Out Boy. More than anything I'm embarrassed. Since when did young black men, heretofore the arbiters of pop culture, become so lame? And since when did the citizens of that culture not know the difference? One Saturday not long ago, my wife called me into the living room. MTV had on some dance competition show, and an earnest group from Philly did the Soulja Boy. My wife and I watched, stunned, as the crowd and apparently all of America cheered on the group's shuffles. Iterations were involved, but it was a largely faithful piece. The kids in the crowd had to be quieted. I wish I could have been there, a cassette player and a 20-year-old mix tape in my clenched fist. I would have handed it over to any kid who looked like he needed it, much as Speed once passed it to me. And I would have said, simply, "Here. Let this guide you."

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