What Makes The Cut

Country music took the lead this year at the Grammys in the form of the Dixie Chicks, as hip-hop was almost entirely forgotten about. The awards for the Dixie Chicks were for record, song, and album of the year. “Not Ready to Make Nice,” won best country performance by a duo or group with vocal. The song refers to lead singer, Nathalie Maines’s comment in 2003 to a London audience, regarding her embarrassment to be from the same state (Texas) as President Bush. This comment failed to win over audiences at the Country Music Awards, and resulted in multiple destructions of Dixie Chicks’ CDs. Despite much animosity towards the Dixie Chicks in the Country music scene, the Dixie Chicks seem to have won over other more mainstream audiences. Their album “Taking the Long Way” sold over one million copies in the first couple of weeks, which is surprising considering all of their cancelled tours. Now, after the Grammys, an estimated 20.1 million viewers have seen the success of the Dixie Chicks. The day after the awards, “Not Ready to Make Nice” reached number one on iTunes, and “Taking the Long Way” hit number one on both iTunes and Amazon (“Dixie Chicks arise from ashes of boycott. Will they land in the mainstream?”). The Dixie Chicks gained a wider audience without the help of the radio. Unrestricted by the radio, they opted to convey to their audience what they truly believed, rather than staying quiet to appease someone else. This not only is a step further for free speech, but also brings the audience closer to the Dixie Chicks. The Dixie Chicks are seen as more real, rather than a formulated image to sell more records in the Country music circles. Wider audiences are now interested in the Dixie Chicks music, some purely for the political message that the Dixie Chicks now represent.

Unlike Country music, which made a huge dent at the Grammys as a result of the Dixie Chicks, hip-hop was almost entirely ignored by the Grammys. None of the hip-hop albums received any nominations in the major categories. Hip hop album sales have also been declining, despite the fact that they were one of the larger selling categories in past years (Defiant Dixie Chicks Are Big Winners at the Grammys”). Perhaps content has something to do with the sales. While the Dixie Chicks have become content-focused, hip hop has become more commercialized, and less heartfelt.

San Francisco-based indie label Outta Nowhere Entertainment is attempting to change some of the negative stereotypes portrayed by hip hop lately. It plans to release “Queendom Vol. 1,” which will be the first in a series of releases that will focus on female emcees and DJs from across the country and the world (“Compilation spotlights women hip-hop mikes, battling ‘vixen’ stereotypes”). The label intends to attract those fans that have in the past been pushed away by hip-hop’s degrading views towards women. Speculators blame some of the views on the fact that there is a gender imbalance in hip-hop music, with predominantly male performers. With the rise of females in hip- hop, content is expected to change to life experiences like domestic violence, teen pregnancy, and runaways. Whether or not this content change will cause an even further loss of hip-hop fans is questionable. The heavier topics may push away some fans, but old fans may be replaced with newer ones who are drawn to the changed content of hip-hop music. Hip-hop may once again be a form of expression, and its artists better role models to future generations.