As you may or may not know, I am the Operations Manager (among other things) for The PJ Productions Radio Network http://pjpradio.com. One of the jobs of the Operations Manager is to make sure music played on the stations stay within the goal genre.
I literally receive over 100 new music submission daily from record companies and independent artists. Our top rated station is our Gospel station which is currently hovering between #2 & #3 in the ratings. Our second most popular station is our Jazz station which is steadily cllimbing the charts and holding a #14 position in the Smooth Jazz genre. Our latest and least popular station is our Urban station which has been holding a #54 position for over 2 months. Now when you consider the number of Urban stations on our host server (over 1000) thats not a bad number.
Check them all out at http://pjpradio.com (another plug 
)
But here is my issue....
Would anyone agree with me that Hip-Hop is taking over the world of African American music? For those that do, why do you think that is? It is becoming so overwhelming that the young people today and apparently a lot of new artists dont know whats Hip-Hop and whats R&B. This is particularly frustrating to me as I am attempting to build an urban station that you can listen to while at work or RELAXING at home.... free of degrading music, free of profanity. When I first really became interested in music (at the beginning era of hip-hop), this is what I knew to be true about these three genres....
Its R&B if there is singing (Isley Brothers, Alicia Keys, Brian McKnight, Sade, etc.)
Its Hip-Hip was not a genre at that time. It was created to deal with softer rap artists such as (Missy, Lil Kim, Ludakris, Busta, etc.)
Its Rap if there is.... rapping (more hardcore artists)
Does that not hold true today? I swear I signed up to receive R&B artist submissions from an internet record pool.. What do i get? 90% Rap mostly labeled by the artist as R&B. Whats up with that?
In my personal opinion, it doesnt take much skill to create a rap. Its a rhyme for God sakes. A little child can come up with and perform a rap. It takes some skill and vocal training to sing. Everybody cannot sing. Thats what im looking for on my station. Why are aspiring artists taking the easy road out and doing rap as opposed to singing something meaningful (not to say some rap tracks arent). It is so overwhelming, i much rather listen to the smooth jazz station on the radio in my car or the adult contemporary station, one of which i would not even touch when i was younger, just to avoid hearing rap all day.... ON THE R&B STATION!
oh wait..... and dont think youre going to go to the clubs and hear something different, like maybe some good ole house music... nope, youre going to hear the same shit you just finished listening to when you parked your car 2 minutes ago. Why?
So i regress...
I would like to know your opinions on this, from hip-hop lovers, hip-hop haters, etc. Whats the attraction? Why is it taking over every African American music genre? What kind of music do you prefer to listen to?