Thread:TKandMit/@comment-26494243-20150809053615/@comment-26494243-20150809060322

Nas made the album "Hip-Hop is Dead" in a time when he was disgusted by the mainstream glut Hip-Hop found itself in. I think rap was most popular, on Billboard and shit, around the mid 2000's. People came to associate it with what they heard on the radio, which wasn't at all what Nas had grown up and helped create in the 90's, which was more underground.

I think Nas retracted the "Hip-Hop is Dead" statement a few years later. It was never meant to be a real declaration, just reflecting his emotions about it. That doesn't stop people from using it all the time to describe modern rappers they don't like.