I've been saying the same exact thing man. I used to listen to rap/hip-hop CONSTANTLY up until all this YEEEAAAAH! WHAT?? OKAAAAAY!!! BS started in I guess 2003ish (I was coming home from overseas at the time so I was out of the loop). As soon as I started hearing all that, I slowly but surely went on to listen to other genres of music and hope they entertain me better. Eventually by the time that garbage, Crank dat Soulja boy, laffy taffy, and all that other stupid shit aired, I was already at full swing listening to rick and metal.
Even some of the recent artists who I was a big fan of back in the 80s and 90s have gone down the drain. Jay-Z is imo went from talking about real stuff and life to sounding like all the other idiots talking about how rich they are, me, me, me, me. Even Ice Cube who I was a real hardcore fan of since he went solo just doesn't have that west coast flow like he used to, yet his boy Mack 10 keeps it real and original as if he never changed his flow. Bone Thugs is another I was a hardcore fan of. They don't sound right since they decided to slow down their flow. I stopped buying their albums after Thug World Order in 2002. That was the last album that they were rapping fast.

I often laugh at the fact that we, the older audience would say these things because I remember when my mother would hear Run DMC on the radio back in the day and sees me bobbing to the beat. She'd look at me crazy saying exactly what we are saying to the younger generation today, "What in the world are we listening to?" And I would reply to her that this is the jam (still is)! So in contrast to what our parents would do, I stick with listening to my generation of music. Never in my life would I ever have turned away from a genre I have listened to all my life since the early 80s because of today's (as KRS-One said about Nelly) "Hip-Pop" garbage. It hurts me to even say I don't listen to rap when it used to be that soundtrack to my life.

The irony of me sounding more or less like those who were critical of what music we had listened to growing up, has not been lost on me. Now us 'older' pepople (then again while your reply implies youre at least older than me by quite a margin, I can only guess at best such), are more or less critical of what a lot of music is today.

That and I feel your pain in regards to artists you used to follow, going down paths you don't approve of much.

I think what revitalized my intrest in such music (rap) was due in large part the Samuari Champloo soundtrack, and later The Boondocks, to the likes of Fat Jon, Nujabes, Matlib and MF Doom to name but a few.

Though due in part to my expreience with many video game soundtracks, and countless hours of coming across the likes of Jazz, Blues, Rock, Metal, House, (general) electronic music as well as techno (which for some is a catch all for all electronic music regardless), finding stuff of other genres in some vein wasn't too hard...

Given I held then and even today something of a wide taste of music I enjoy and I'm open to at best. Though at worse its on an artist-to-artist basis for such genres like Rap.

My other probelm is that as said before, music lacking depth and substance. Which for me runs a risk of sounding like a snob or trying to be pretentious. Sometimes I want things to be raised far as standards go.

Even though I'd also be a hypcrite becuase I USED to like such things as N'Sync, Britney Spears and so on. But this was in conjunction to other artists, groups and genres that wern't pre-manufactuered guff made solely to adhere to demographics.

I suppose I want people to have more of an equivalent to a proper full meal than simply having starches, candy and other junk food alone.

But demanding that of others on some end feels...wrong. I wish I had a better way to explain it other than it woud be in conflict with how I feel that within reason, people should be able to like, dislike,whatever in question no matter what.

If I have an utter fucking hatred of Cheef Keef and someone else likes what I consider industrial waste, than I woun't think lower of such a person (at least in theory).

I mean it's not like everybody who listens to a song actually may try to immitate whatever is being talked about. Assuming anybody, though I've lived long enough to know how some people will, more or less sing along and have no real fucking clue what a song may be about.

More or less what Kurt Kobain pointed out in that song 'In Bloom' a long while back.

Hearing that bigge small song I suppose was a bit of a straw on the cammel's back because baring exceptions, I'm expecting better and finding such is to put it midly (for me anyway) difficult as fuck.

But I also question again...if there's any real difference between anythingg cheef Keef does, from something specific such as 'Find you' from Max Anarchy/Anarchy reigns by Doujah Raze and Hiroshi Yamaguchi, outside personal tastes.

I would be saying more but I've rambled enough and I wonder if I made any sense at all.