I more than likely will settle for Walmart when Target is closed; I'm a Target kinda woman. When fast food used to be a staple in my diet, I only did Burger King when the "Golden Arches" weren't close by or were closed. I prefer Revlon lip glosses but when they're sold out, I'll buy Maybelline..because it's available. You understand. Now with respect to modern-day music, I strongly believe that we're settling for the music that we're provided in the same manner. I know what you're saying.. this is not a revelation Tiye..of course we're all dissatisfied..there's been a serious lack of originality, creativity, and the bar (standard) with respect to quality of product has pretty much been low for quite some time now. Everyone I speak to has the same response when it comes to their satisfaction level with respect to modern day hip-hop. Everyone says they feel that beats are lackluster; that rhymes are dry and unimaginative nowadays. The concepts and the ideas are overdone. Everyone I know says this. Not a few disgruntled postal workers, or embittered haters. EVERYONE. Now, don't many of the modern-day popular "successful" artists know that this sentiment seems to be the consensus of the general public? And if they know this why doesn't anyone seem to care enough to change the condition? If you and I were embarking on a journey, would you continue to press your foot on the accelerator and proceed forward after we understood that we accidentally passed our destination 24 miles ago? No. You would make a U-turn to go back, so that we could reach our original destination as initially intended. Well this doesn't seem to be the logic employed in modern-day hip-hop. Let's reminisce for a second. Remember when you were undeniably happy with the state of music? You knew that Rakim album was gonna be incredible..you knew KRS-1 was gonna bring it..you heard Illmatic and you thought hip-hop couldn't get any better... You were optimistic..you were satisfied.. you trusted art. you believed in music. you had faith in hip-hop. You don't feel that way now. But you know what? They don't care about how discontented you are. They're egos have them pressing on that accelerator regardless, no intenion of making a U-turn; the destination now is unknown. They don't want to respect the standard that built the artform in which they now participate.. They don't care. Did you hear me? They don't care. At all. I'm sorry if this sounds like a wasted blog because I didn't really reveal anything, but I had to address the elephant in the room. And the truth is THEY DON'T CARE THAT YOU'RE DISSATISFIED. So that's it, no more to it..just thought I'd take 25 min. out of my life to overstate the obvious.