The 90’s were the glorious days of rap music. When the great MCs still walked and the rap game had its masters. This is when worldwide acceptance of hip hop was at its peak. The artistes from that era were those that had grown up listening to old school hip hop from rappers like Run DMC who served as their inspiration. Most of them had a history; this gave them something to rap about, topics that their audiences could relate to. They rapped about life in the projects, losing friends or family to gang violence, love stories in the hood as well as their everyday struggle to survive and to make it out of the ghetto.

These real life experiences kept them relevant, because there was a message in their music. Its often said that with time comes growth, or at least change and true enough, as the world moved into the twenty first century, the face of hip hop and rap changed. Buoyed by the struggles of their predecessors, a new crop of rappers came up whose rap message was different. It revolved around glamorous parties, multiple cars, female groupies and money. They had achieved the life that the older rappers yearned for. Rap was no longer about the message; it was about the beat of the music and the lifestyle. Many critics have dismissed this new hip hop as diluted, having incorporated various other genres of music like Rock and Soul music into it. Some critics claim that what is in the market nowadays is just ‘bubblegum rap’ and is completely baseless. They say rap has become too commercialized.