this is a video of TJ talking about a little beef ICP had with Kiss during the late 90s while ICP were at their peak of popularity and Kiss were at their lowest point. but the reason i posted that is because when i hear people talk ageism in hip hop, i always hear them compare it to rock or metal, they say how rock fans treat the old singers like legends and hip hop heads don't. but this wasn't always true with rock fans, during the 90's these old bands such as kiss, black sabbath etc were at their lowest points, they were all popular during the 70's and 80's but the 90's when the sound changed no-one cared about them, their albums sold poorly and had poor reviews during that time, they were just as some see old rappers today, old and washed up.
but it wasn't until the early 2000's, a decade after they became washed up that the rock heads and metal heads started to get into these bands once again, not for any new music but to hear their old music which made them big in the first place. ozzy osbourne of course had great marketing, his wife started the OZ Fest when Woodstock 99 didn't want him to perform because he was seen as washed up. the OZ fest which had a bunch of old rock bands ended up doing well, ozzy then ended up getting a reality show as did everyone else during the 00's who wanted to launch or re-ignite their singing careers.
but the thing is rock did go through a period just like how hip hop is today, where the legends were seen as washed up by the mainstream, but people forget that today.
with hip hop, people say the legends such as rakim, kool moe dee etc don't recieve respect from the young hip hop heads or maybe rap heads. but i think this is changing just like it did in rock music. just look at the average age of the people in RHHF, a lot of them are in their teens, and yet they listen to the old school hip hop.
with the Rock The Bells festival, you'll notice that this is similar to the oz festival, where you have the old legends all performing on stage and selling big numbers as well as the new faces of hip hop. so maybe its due to these festivals doing exactly what the oz fest did for rock. http://www.ozzfest.com/history.html
this year rakim will be performing all of Paid In Full, Wu-Tang are performing all of 36 Chambers, Slick Rick is performing his classic The Adventures of Slick Rick, so its doing just what the oz fest did for old school metal imo
and maybe its also due to kids simply finding more and more of the old school through the internet, but i think it is changing for the better for hip hop.
when Twisted Sister was talking about performing all his old songs, the reason he said people came to see his shows his because 1. the old fans from the 80s wanted to see it one more time again and 2. the newer fans who discovered the music wanted to see what they missed out on. if hip hop emcee's can get it right they can have the same thing, because today there are older heads who wanna see the legends perform again and the newer hip hop heads who never got to see the legends perform and wanna see it.
the reason i wrote this was because i was listening to letsspeakhiphops latest podcast which was on this topic, he also talked about it the other way where older hip hop heads don't give the younger rappers a chance as well
http://letsspeakhiphop.podomatic.com/player....1-07_00
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