A couple weeks ago in The New Yorker, Sasha Frere-Jones confirmed Nas' crochety 2006 proclamation that hip-hop is dead.  Whew, thank goodness a pop critic from an insular magazine whose mascot is Eustace Tilley is here to keep us informed on these things.             

The biggest problem with Frere-Jones' argument, however, lies not in the publication that houses it, but on what he bases it.  For most of the article, Jones focuses on the uniquely New York-ian legend Jay Z, and more specifically the rapper's latest album, The Blueprint 3.   

As "Empire State of Mind" restates, if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere!  Let's hear it for New York! Yeah, if you've got a trust fund and upper-crusty society connections, you certainly can make it there.  Yeah, let's hear it for a city that's become so self-referential it's blinded to its own declining importance.  

New York is notorious for assuming it owns the exclusive rights to the production of cool, and it does indeed have evidence to support those bragging rights.  Yet over the past 15 years or so, Manhattan, and increasingly, the boroughs, have become so expensive that artists, arguably the people who create this cool, have moved out because they can no longer afford to live and work there.                    

Frere-Jones makes some valid points.  Rhianna's one-note kindergartener tone on "Run this Town's" chorus is in no way equivalent to other "so muh' fuckin' soulful" previous hooks. But she's Jay's pet project, so of course he'll put her on.  Kid Cudi's debut didn't live up to the promise of his mixtape. Hip-hop "splintered" into many different forms long ago.  And he does admit this may be hip-hop's time to "atomize."         

What Frere-Jones fails to do is look beyond New York to anyone other than the most obvious mainstream rap artists.  Along with Jay Z and Kid Cudi, he mentions Kanye West, Lil Wayne, and Drake-  New Yorker, transplanted New Yorker, token Mid-Westerner, token Southerner, token newcomer.  For his rebuttal, he calls on Raekwon (from NYC's Wu-Tang Clan) and Freddie Gibbs, a Gary, Indiana, rapper who relocated to Los Angeles.        

Just as the New York of the late 1980s pouted over the West Coast's crashing of their rap party, Frere-Jones seems unwilling to acknowledge- or is just plain unknowledgeable- of the dirty, creative underbelly in other cities revitalizing hip-hop yet again.  Gibbs is just one of many as-yet-unknown artists rapping over original beats.  

His praise of Gibbs, in fact, highlights the other flaws in Frere-Jones' argument. What precedence do original beats have in qualifying rap as quality? Sampling has long been a cornerstone of rap, and rapping over someone's established song is a method of showing and proving you do can do it better. Why disparage "bloated expansion and leveraging of fantasies" while heralding "little sentimentality or exaggeration"?  Trash-talking, one-upping, and rapping about what you have while in reality precisely not having those things are the foundation of MC battling.  "Underdogs ended up sounding smug" because rappers have always been about faking it 'til they're making it.                 

It's not as if this is the first time critics have underestimated the staying power of hip-hop.  Puff Daddy killed it with crinkly, colored onesies.  Master P and then Cash Money Millionaires killed it with bling.  Soulja Boy killed it with ringtones.                               

Hip-hop will never die. Has jazz died? Classical music? There's an ebb and flow in all art forms. Hip-hop might devolve for a bit, but it'll also evolve again.  L.A.'s as-yet-unknown rappers seem primed to lead that way.